Gate Off
by Oryx
Summary: Two wards. Two parties. One destiny.
1. In Fair Candlekeep

_Know thyself._  
  
-Socrates  
  
  
BALDUR'S GATE/OFF  
  
_Two youths, both alike in dignity,  
In fair Candlekeep, where we lay our scene,  
From ancient prophecy break to new mutiny,  
Where divine blood makes mortal hands unclean.  
From forth the fatal loins of unknown foe  
A pair of star-cross'd warriors take their life;  
Whose heroic or villainous overthrows  
May unleash or bury their sire's strife.  
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd lives,  
And the continuance of inborn rage,  
Which, but the Children's end, nought could remove,  
Is now the two year's traffic of their stage;  
The which if one with patient ears attend,  
What here shall miss, their toil shall strive to mend._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
1. In Fair Candlekeep  
  
  
  
Candlekeep.  
  
Safe.  
  
Secure.  
  
Home.  
  
The fair first day of merry Mirtul was bright and sunny in the small, walled library town of Candlekeep, and, as usual, the cloistered fortress of a settlement was quiet and peaceful.  
  
Quiet and peaceful save for the two young humans engaged in furious sparring in the gardens around the library, at least.  
  
These were the youths Onyx and Jade, their eyes darting over each other as they anticipated and attacked, their movements inexpert but athletic, their muscles rippling beneath their tunics as they dueled. Jade's tunic was simply a solid dark shade of gray, not quite black, Onyx's was light blue but upon the chest had the emblem of a rosy disc depicting a sunrise. He had upon a planed face intense sapphire eyes, lips held firm, and a short crop of light brunette hair; she had upon a stone-smooth and round face appraising emerald eyes, pursed full lips, and bright scarlet hair that fell to her neck.  
  
_When shadows descend upon the lands..._ wafted the chanting of monks across the gardens.  
  
The blades of Onyx and Jade crossed.   
  
"You seem distracted, sis," Onyx looked over the "X" made by their wooden swords.  
  
"I am," Jade nodded as they pulled their blades apart and swung again, this time hitting each other's shields.  
  
"What is it?" Onyx asked and stabbed for Jade's chest.   
  
"It's...everything," Jade looked skyward, deflecting the thrust at her heart. "The whole world. It's out there, we're in here. There's nothing here for me. And no one."  
  
_Our divine lords will walk alongside us as equals..._  
  
"Our father? Immy? Each other?" Onyx inquired with eyes of compassion from under his sword as he raised it to block his twin sister's downward swing.  
  
"You know what I mean...." Jade hopped back and Onyx's oaken weapon swung through empty air just in front of her.   
  
"Father's right, and so's Jondalar," Onyx answered, swinging again and missing, "We're not ready yet."  
  
_...The Lord of Murder shall perish..._  
  
"But we are!" Jade swung her sword down fast and hard, "Summer after summer, all we do is hunt kobold raiders between her and the Way. Where's the fun, the freedom, the adventure?"  
  
Onyx easily caught the incoming weapon on the hilt of his own. "Yeah... this is home, but...well, with this iron shortage we keep hearing about, I almost wish we could do something about it."  
  
Jade looked into her opponent's eyes, trying to anticipate his next move. "Oh, there you go again bro, those blue eyes getting all dreamy. Want to be the little hero."  
  
"It's not about that. I just want to do what's right," Onyx sighed, while lunging with a swing.  
  
_...But in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny..._  
  
"You don't sound very confident," Jade teased him, ducking the swing, scoffing, and swinging low.  
  
"Well, I don't want to be overconfident either," the young paladin jumped over the low strike and swung from the side, "Believing in a cause is a balancing act. Otherwise confidence becomes arrogance, or flexibility becomes indecisiveness."   
  
"Balancing?" Jade snickered, holding out her shield and swinging from the other side, "You sound like a treehugger now. Looking out for one woman is cause enough, in this dangerous world," her emerald eyes grew further away. "You always make it sound so simple. You've had it easy. You've never even had to look out for yourself, really."  
  
"C'mon, sis, we've grown up the same," Onyx sighed as both swords glanced of both shields.  
  
_...Chaos will be sown from their passage..._  
  
Onyx and Jade circled each other, anticipating one another's next attacks.  
  
"That's not the point," Jade frowned, "Candlekeep is a bubble. An ivory tower. Romantic ideals are so easy here. All talk. How much courage have you really had to show, brother? You can't just keep doing stupid chores like fetching swords for guards too dumb to remember them, or feeding medicine to sick old cows. "  
  
"Good deeds are their own reward," Onyx shrugged as they engaged, "Besides, Miss Scrolls-and-Bolt Speedy Delivery and Great Slayer of Rats, you're one to talk."  
  
"I got _paid_, idiot," Jade snarled. "The rest of the world is brutal, dangerous, and dark."  
  
"It's good and bad, aye, and complicated. And it will be a test, whenever it comes," Onyx cautiously studied his opponent.  
  
"And will you hold up, I wonder? Better yet, I should you? The test is survival. Keep trying to defend every last little cause, and you'll end up a corpse, not a hero."  
  
"I'm not trying to be a hero. No one has to be. It just sometimes turns out that way."  
  
_...So sayeth the wise Alaundo!_  
  
Onyx and Jade lunged forward, swinging their swords hard. As the wooden weapons moved toward each other, they cracked together with such force that the blades splintered at the point of impact, and the ends went flying into the pools flanking the path.  
  
"Would they shut up already!?" Jade turned her attention across the gardens, towards the monks.  
  
"I'd have put it more delicately," Onyx chuckled, folding his hands over the emblem on his blue tunic, "But I'm inclined to agree. Cyric slew Bhaal. Whatever his schemes, they're history."  
  
"Gods," Jade spat into the pool, "People should spend more time looking to themselves, less to the irrelevant doings of deities."  
  
Onyx and Jade turned their attention to two scruffy looking men who were approaching down the cobblestone path. The two young warriors couldn't help noticing the men each were making lame attempts to hold weapons 'concealed' by their sides. The duelers both dropped their broken wooden swords, their hands reflexively went to the _steel_ swords' hilts at their belts.  
  
"Hey there!" one of the scruffy men, a slightly overweight blonde fellow, called to them, showing a mouth full of rotten teeth, "You boys be Gorion's wards?"  
  
"What the hell are you talking about, hick?" Jade snarled at him. The man looked a tad surprised, then turned to the other.  
  
"Yeah," the second guy, a weasel-faced type with a cowl, smiled with a look as if he had just figured out something he thought was really clever, "That's them."  
  
"Your lives shall be mine," Jade snickered, she and Onyx immediately poised for combat as years of Jondalar's training kicked in.  
  
The physical fight was over before it began. Onyx unsheathed his sword and swung it so hard at the neck of the blonde man who lunged with a shortsword, that he cleaved through his swordarm wrist, disarming him of his weapon and three fingers, and without losing speed beheaded him. Jade swung her shield at the rodent-man's lunging blade so hard that the armament went flying from the fool's hand, his wrist probably broken as well, and then Jade thrust her longsword into the man's innards and twisted it before kicking his body off.  
  
As the decapitated body of the man he'd killed hit the cobblestones, the sickening crunch triggered something in Onyx's mind. He had seen it the moment he engaged his foe, but his mind, on the physical battle then, just now contemplated it. He had seen _through_ the man. He had seen his sins. Which were not mortal or many. _I killed a man. I killed another person._  
  
"Pathetic," Jade spat upon the limp bodies of the men as they fell to the ground and bled. She looked at the lifeblood coating her sword and grinned. Onyx watched in disgust as Jade seemed to close hers eyes and breathe deeply of the iron-copper smell of the blood, visibly relishing it. But then, his disgust gave way to more of a curiosity, the smell filled his senses, and he felt a rush.   
  
"Oh," Jade smirked when she finally opened her eyes, "Don't tell me you're not enjoying it. I can see it. That same tingle in your eyes get on the kobold hunts."  
  
"Adrenaline rush," Onyx shrugged. It felt well enough like one. "Maybe relatively intense. I feel a little odd, but it's my first time killing a man. To be expected, I guess."  
  
"Yeah," Jade chuckled while the well-taught warriors cleaned their blades, "I know what ya mean." She appraised her brother carefully, and her face lost its excitement to compassion. "I know what you're thinking, bro. It was the right thing to do. We had to. It's not your fault."  
  
The paladin covered his face, wiping away the sweat as if it were the guilt. But only the perspiration came away. "Yeah...I don't _like_ having to." He frowned at his sister, and it asked _does that mean I chose the wrong path?_  
  
And er smile answered, _No, it means you made the right one..._  
  
_...for now._  
  
"Children!" came a very familiar shout from the top of the steps, and Onyx and Jade looked up to see Gorion.  
  
Gorion. Their foster father. Onyx and Jade immediately perked their rounded ears to catch his words. This was the man that, to them, was their father, the only father they knew or remembered. For they remembered nothing of their own parents, or their lives before Gorion himself had brought them to Candlekeep as babes; and even through him they knew little. Their mother, his friend, had apparently had been from Silverymoon, and died in their twin childbirth. For a favor to her, or out of pure compassion, he had taken Onyx and Jade under his wing and thus to Candlekeep. Of their father, they knew nothing. But Gorion had been a father to them these twenty years. The only father they'd ever need.  
  
Gorion came down the front steps of the library. "You are in danger!"  
  
"So I hear," Jade laughed sarcastically, gesturing down to the two bodies at her feet.  
  
"Oh no!" Gorion shouted. "Then...then it is true. Assassins."  
  
"Dumb ones," Jade chuckled.  
  
"Yeah, you'd think they would have tried to get us two-on-one," Onyx shrugged. "And not virtually announced their intentions to our faces in broad daylight."  
  
"...Not that it would have changed the outcome," Jade laughed.  
  
"You are both okay then?" Gorion sighed with visible relief as he reached them, and pulled out two bags that Jade noticed eagerly were filled with gold. "Now, what I must tell you to is brief but of grave importance. We must leave Candlekeep immediately - take this gold to Winthrop's store and buy yourself what you need. And I do not mean food and such, that I have for you, but weapons of fighting beyond those you possess. Trust me. It is fortunate that you two have trained to be warriors, for it seems that already today you have seen bloodshed."  
  
"Caused," Jade grinned, and a very worried look came over the old man's face.  
  
"Seem not so fond if it, my child," Gorion looked up at his foster daughter, who stood taller than he, "I fear that you may soon see much more than you like."  
  
"_Leave_ Candlekeep?" Onyx's face creased with sorrow. "For how long, father?"  
  
"I do not know, child," Gorion shook his head sadly. "I am sorry. Now, go! Meet me back here soon!"  
  
The youths' stomachs wrenched as they turned and walked away. Onyx merely looked groundwards and sighed, while Jade ruefully murmured, "Be careful what you wish for..."  
  
Gorion had left the library doors wide open, and from within, the statue of Alaundo the Wise stared out into the gardens. It seems to gaze at the youths with the bloody swords, its stone face set as ever in a solemn look, ever expectant, ever knowing.


	2. Mary Sue and Imoen Too

2. Mary Sue and Imoen Too  
  
Upon Gorion's bidding, Onyx and Jade were headed from the library to Winthrop's store, and just passing under the archway to the outer keep when they spotted two figures, one young man and one young woman like themselves. This was made easy by the fact that the young man was wearing full plate armor that was so shiny it reflected the full sunlight right into the twins' eyes as well as if a second sun had been standing there in the courtyard.  
  
Shielding his eyes from the young man, Onyx groaned, "It's Gary..."  
  
Noticing the young woman next to him, Jade winced, "And Mary..."  
  
The young woman wore no armor at all, but rather an immodestly form-fitting bold red fighting suit, which proudly proclaimed to the world both the athletic and alluring aspects of her physique, which were both immaculate. She stood an exact 5'9", with body proportions that looked somewhat gravitationally unstable, but were held with perfect poise, and she had long, shoulderlength spun-gold hair, bright baby blue eyes, deep tan skin, and ruby red lips around a pearly smile.  
  
Gary Stu more or less fit the same description, but stood 6'6" and was as muscular as a statue of a god. He had a long mane of golden hair, the same eyes, and a strong, proud chin and generally a perfectly chiseled face. He seemed more like a man of paint on a canvas.  
  
And, Onyx had decided, was about as much fun.   
  
It was indeed Gary Stu and Mary Sue before them. Gary Stu, like Oynx, was a paladin, but a few years older, and an number of inches taller and carrying more muscle on that 6'6" frame. He had been ordained as a Paladin of Tyr at a precocious age, quickly proved himself to be a prodigious swordsman, moral philosopher, and obviously a legend in the making. He had been an adventurer for a number of years now, and a renown hero since several years before Onyx's current age. It seems there was no foul dragon or twisted wizard he could not slay, virtually every royal court within a thousand miles had had one of its fairer princesses rescued from some such danger by him at one point or other, and every single one of them now very much desired him in marriage (among other things). He had also had no shortage of fawning attention from female fellow adventurers, who fit roughly into three categories : (1) sweet, innocent, virginal, and usually blonde good girls whom Gary taught to grow strong but remain charmingly 'dependent' in a more stylistic sense (2) endearingly tough and bitchy warrioresses who sometimes carried internal conflict or tragic pasts, but dealt with it in an undeniably strong-woman manner (3) deliciously wicked bad girl temptresses, usually evil tight-leather-clad rogues or dark priestesses or sorceresses, who had racked up an endless arsenal of naughty idioms and unique carnal techniques in their extensive experiences, but were, underneath it all, just naughty girls with hearts of gold.  
  
Most importantly of all, as a Paladin, Gary Stu _always_ did the right thing. He seemed to be completely immune to armor-polish/fascism jokes, and no matter how morally sticky some of the situations he found himself in were (though most were of the straightforward paladin/princess/dragon variety), Gary Stu _always_ managed to find some way out that would both show how compassionate and big-hearted and willing to forgive a misguided foe with a bad childhood he was, both also how adept and ready he was to slay evil for the common good, and he always managed to achieve both these Good ends within perfect Lawfulness, because he was a Paladin and Paladins believe that Good and Law are intrinsic. And since he believed this, he could _always_ reconcile them.   
  
Jade groaned as she looked _down_ at Mary Sue. Mary Sue was a stronger and far better swordswoman than Jade was, and had been since well before Jade's current age. Nevertheless, she was not quite as large, but rather more feminine and perfectly proportioned and sculpted for optimal attractiveness to the opposite sex (whereas Jade and most other athletic females had, consciously or not, made some trade-off between these ends) but this didn't hinder Mary Sue's abilities, and despite her succubus-league looks she semeed to remain immune to any sort of bimbo/priss jokes, because she wasn't feminine in any of the bad ways; she was in fact also very smart and clever and streetwise, and a shining people of Girl Power that no one except the crassest and most chauvanistic (and usually noble/wealthy) of villains could possibly attempt to debase, which would in due course earn them the emasculating wrath of Mary Sue. She was the (very attractive) embodiment of the throwing down of oppressive patriarchicies on both sides of the moral spectrum, and despite the fact that her modernistic beliefs frequently clashed with the Establishment's, she always seemed to get away scot-free, and indeed with grudging respect. She had since leaving Candlekeep overthrown a number of slaving cartels, deforesting or otherwise environmentally destructive concerns, and other evil and, more importantly, discriminatory sects, all of which seemed to trace their allegiences back to greedy money-grubbing nobles invevitably pulling the strings, who generally found coming onto Mary Sue upon meeting her to be their last mistake.   
  
But, during her adventures, Mary Sue had not been without a generous share of more desirable male companionship, genererally fitting into the categories of (1) musclebound, stoic, and charmingly simple shining nights, rugged woodswoman, or other mighty warriors, all wielding _very_ large weapons (2) dashing, debonair, and formerly charlatanous but now quite willingly monogamous rogues (3) introverted, maniacal or even insane - but either endearingly or reformably so - wizards and sorcerers, whose deep, analytic minds were able to probe and appreciate her in ways no others' could.   
  
"Hey there squirts," Mary Sue laughed like golden chimes as she and Gary Stu strode up before Onyx and Jade, their shiny, bejeweled equipment glinting magically in the sunlight that seemed to fall especially around them. Onyx closed his eyes, seeing sunspots from the reflection of Gary Stu's armor.   
  
"You look like you're off to some sort of adventure yourself," Gary Stu grinned, showing off the beautiful teeth inside his prominent jaw, "Remember, when the path seems murky and unclear, just look within the many pearls of wisdom Mary and I have dispened over the years, and which might also be found in the many tales of our exploits, with which I am sure you are familiar. I do hate to have to use myself as an example, but I feel it is the best way to keep you kids from going astray, and that's what counts." He patted Onyx on the head.   
  
"Gee thanks," Onyx sighed. "Where would I be without you?"  
  
"Either dead beside the road, or a Fallen thrall in the grasp of some evil cult, most likely," Gary Stu answered as if reading from a textbook.  
  
"Aw, cheer up," Mary Sue smiled up at a scowling Jade, "And smile more! Got to look our best when we act our toughest, I always say!" She laughed perkily and musically. It was all Jade could do to keep from socking her in the dainty jaw.   
  
Onyx and Jade exchanged tired glances, mumbled a few hollow words of thanks and goodbye, and moved on past the other two, while Mary Sue looked at her reflection in Gary Stu's armor and brushed back a charmingly disobedient golden lock of hair.   
  
------  
  
With a slight change of plans, to help in avoiding Mary and Gary, Jade and Onyx had split up for a bit, to gather the contents of their rooms, agreeing to meet at Winthrop's in no more than one hour. Jade, packed and ready to go with time to spare, now sat on the bed of her friend Siria, a pale raven-haired girl of seventeen. She was the half-elven daughter of a visiting elven 'scholar' from Evermeet, and purportedly born of the union between her and Ulraunt, the scheming Keeper of the Tomes and effective leader of Candlekeep.  
  
Siria took a deep puff from a rolled up wad of paper, and handed it to Jade. "If either of my parents find out, they'll kill you."  
  
_I'd like to see them try,_ Jade thought while taking a long drag, _Especially 'Old Buzzard' Ulraunt. If I overhear him calling me a hell-bitch one more time, I'll kill him._ She instead said, "Tell them to get in line. Two bungling hicks already tried today."  
  
"Oh no," Siria gasped while Jade exhaled, "Maybe they did find out. I overhead Ulraunt telling my mom about he'd always wanted to get rid of you. Said recently he'd found some people who could do it for him, and told them 'all about you,' whatever that means. I-I'm sorry I didn't know sooner, I heard it just last night."  
  
_That does it,_ Jade decided, taking a drag while sneering, _Ulraunt is going to f-ing DIE. For what he did to X, and what he's done to me._ "Hells, Gorion said they were assassins," Jade actually felt pangs of fear as well as anger, "Could that be what this is about?" She looked at her teenage pal. "But they seemed to want Onyx too. Father wants to take both of us out of Candlekeep. Tonight. Don't know for how long."  
  
Siria cursed and sighed. "Well, my witch of a mother is taking me back to Evermeet soon anyway. It was fun though." She took the joint back and inhaled through it.   
  
"Maybe I'll make it out there," Jade smiled, taking the joint and another drag, "I've got no idea where Gorion wants us to go." _Hopefully somewhere with more opportunities than this sealed-off corner of 'civilization'._  
  
"That'd be neat!" Siria laughed while Jade exhaled lotus fumes. "Stuff's easier to get there, y'know."  
  
"Anywhere'd be easier than here," Jade sighed, and glanced over at the late-day sunlight filtering through her window. "Well, I better go. Farewell, Siria."  
  
"See you," Siria giggled as Jade hopped over to the closed door and slighlty opened it, peering out furtively. "I'll be here another week or two, then Evermeet. Write me?"   
  
Jade was already gone.  
  
--------  
  
Onyx and Jade came wandering out of Winthrop's store, looking quite different than when they'd come in. In addition to the new steel longswords sheathed at their hips, Jade wore chainmail and Onyx splint, and they had longbows and shields on their backs, helms on their heads, and backpacks loaded with the most valued of their few respective worldly possessions.  
  
"Wow," Onyx mused, "Leave Candlekeep? More bounty hunters must be coming. But why?"  
  
Jade bit her full lower lip. "Well, there's what I told you about Siria. But then why you too? Or maybe they're trying to get back at Gorion for something. I'm telling you Onyx, he's got shady affiliations, I can just tell."  
  
"Affiliations, perhaps, clandestine maybe, but shady, that's hardly the word I'd use," Onyx shook his head. "He's a good man."  
  
"You're missing the point. I think he's more than just a bookworm monk, and I bet he's pissed someone off. And so they're threatening us, since we're the closest he's got to family."  
  
"Sound plausible," Onyx nodded, "I can't think of anything better."  
  
"Well, I can't say I liked being hunted," Jade snickered, "But at least we get outa this dusty book-warehouse, eh?" She slapped Oynx on the shoulder.  
  
"Yeah, but what a time to venture into the world," Onyx sighed, "All these rumors I keep hearing about the iron shortage, bandits everywhere these days...and now you and I are walking steel-depots!" He looked over Jade's armor and weapons and his own with trepidation. The young paladin then looked with worry up at the bright sky.  
  
_Help me stay optimisitc, Lord. Help me perservere. Let me look not to this sunset, but to the next dawn._  
  
_And give me strength for anything that may occur between. The sun sets red, and I feel that I shall need it._  
  
A very pleasant and familiar voice sang ahead of him.  
  
"Heya, guys, it's me, Imoen!"   
  
The voice was music, an endless melody, the voice was flowers, an endless field, the voice banished all despair from Onyx's heart.   
  
Onyx's head snapped forward, looking over the multicolored flowers lining the way, to the welcome sight of his best friend in the whole world: Imoen.   
  
Imoen. She was a cute round-faced girl with auburn hair, a warm smile, a mischevious streak, and the cunning and agility to exploit it to the max, which she did with innocent glee. Which would and did make a clever guise for a little teenaged thief, but Imoen, underneath the prankster, was as genuine as people came. In spite of the yammering lectures from established paladins and monks Onyx had recently been exposed to, he found it impossible to categorically condemn the thieving profession when the thought of darling Imoen.  
  
She was Jade's best friend too. Although the warrioress turned her nose at the girl's pluckier, girlier qualities, she, at a level she wouldn't admit, envied the girl for her happiness, her innocence, indeed Jade saw herself, when she had once been like that.   
  
The three of them exchanged bright-eyed gazes and smiled.   
  
_Two girls and a boy chased each other through a field of grass and wildflowers, Candlekeep loomed far behind them against the sea, its chores and lessons for the moment forgotten.  
  
"You're it!"  
  
"Ha! You're it!"  
  
"Nuh-uh! No tag-backs!"  
  
"Uh-huh!"  
  
"Huh-uh!"  
  
"I'll tag you both!!!"  
  
The three of them collapsed into a bed of clover, wriggling and giggling._  
  
Imoen's happy faced creased into a worried expression that Onyx and Jade had never seen before. "You guys okay? I heard about the thugs. You look okay. Actually, you look really amazing in full battle gear! I don't blame ya, what with what happened. I'm so..."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, we get it," Jade rolled her eyes. "I didn't know you were capable of such a serious thought, Imoen!"  
  
"Aw, lighten up, sis," Onyx winked at Jade and hugged Imoen. "Hey, Immy, good to see ya. Gorion said we had to leave Candlekeep, and to get prepared."  
  
"Really prepared, apparently," Imoen looked over them, in their full battle-gear. "Wow...must be pretty serious. Ya guys look like big bad knights now! Sounds dangerous. But exciting! I'll....see you...I guess..."  
  
"I hope so, Immy," Jade smiled at her friend, then looked up. "It's starting to get dark. Let's get going, bro."  
  
"Okay," Onyx nodded. He hugged Imoen again, and stared her in the eys. She smiled back up at him. "See you, Imoen. I _will_ see you. I _promise_."  
  
"Dontcha worry, Ony, dontcha worry, Jadey," Imoen giggled, hugged Jade, and hugged Onyx again around the neck when he lifted her up high enough to do so, "Ya sure will!"  
  
She bounded away, picking the a daisy and putting it behind her ear, and Onyx and Jade made it the rest of the way to the front steps of the library.   
  
Jade was breathing deeply, and despite her recent words to the contrary, really starting to miss Candleekp even though she hadn't left it yet. Imoen always did that to her. To her brother, Imoen was a soulmate - as was she. But to her, Imoen was even more, if that was possible. She was a mirror, a mirror that showed Elysium behind you, even if you actually stood before the Abyss, a mirror that would smile back if you frowned, a mirror that would show you healed if you were hurt, laughing if you cried. A mirror that should never be cracked. A mirror that must never be cracked.   
  
"Ah, good," Gorion nodded as they returned, "It grows dark, and the night will only get worse. We must not tarry. Come!" They walked toward the front gates of the keep. Onyx and Jade and been outside them many times before, in fact they both preferred being outside to inside and outdoors to indoors, but never had they gone without the intention of returning quite soon.  
  
"Now, if we should get separated for any reason," Gorion told them, "Remember that even you will not be able to get back inside Candlekeep, nor should you want to. It is the first place they would look." Onyx and Jade exchanged uneasy glances. _Who was 'they'?_   
  
Gorion continued. "Instead, go north to the Friendly Arm Inn - the obelisks along the road will point the way. There you must meet two...old friends of mine staying there, a half-elven couple, Khalid and Jaheira. They will recognize you." Again, Onyx and Jade exchanged worried glances. _And just why would they?_  
  
The two young warriors sighed. Questions were piling up much, much faster than answers.


	3. In the Name of the Father

_Mine patron is Lathander, God of Dawn,  
And Bhaal our sire, Lord of Murder, gone;   
But know you fathers always only one  
Have we, and he is named Gorion._  
  
-_Ronys and Juliad_ _v_.9.30-33  
William Quiverlance   
  
  
  
3. In the Name of the Father  
  
  
  
As the sun set, Gorion led his wards through the gate of Candlekeep, and the guard reissued Gorion's warning to Onyx and Jade that, even though they had lived there all their lives, they would by themselves not be able to return.  
  
Night had fallen when the gates slammed shut behind them and a rain had just picked up. "Let us hurry!" Gorion commanded and led them on. The other two had their bows gripped firmly, ready to draw arrows from the quivers strapped alongside thier backpacks. On they wandered, for hours through the rain, eastward toward the Coast Way, and Gorion's stamina and stride did not seem to falter at all, despite the old sage he was, as pure strength of purpose fueled his aged bones.   
  
But this may have only hastened the moment when their path became blocked but a squad of imposing figures.  
  
The two on the extreme left and right were by far the most massive creatures Onyx or Jade had ever seen, but they recognized them from their schooling. Ogres. Eech carried a cudgel almost as large as the young warriors' torsos, and looked quite ready and capable to bash said body parts to pulp with those weapons.   
  
One of the figures in between was much smaller, but still imposing. A cloaked woman with a flail and shield, and slanted eyes that peered out of a helmet.   
  
The fourth figure was a waking, walking nightmare. Only slightly smaller than the ogres, and likely not one iota weaker, he was an enormous figure in obscenely spiky armor, and he held a massive, darkly red glowing two-handed sword that seemed to hunger for life itself. His face, for better or for worse, was hidden by his spiky helmet, save for two searing, golden glowing eyes that burned with malice.  
  
He was an apparition that walked the fine line between monster and man.   
  
"Prepare yourself!" Gorion shouted, raising his own hands. "It's an ambush!"  
  
Jade rolled her eyes as, like her brother, her right hand flicked to up her quiver, and back to her bowstring. ""Ya think?"  
  
The armored figure laughed, as if enjoying the girl's sarcasm. His voice was deep, and bellowing. Very commanding, very intimidating, and very, very, confident. "Your ward is perceptive, old man. You know why I'm here. Hand over your wards and no one will be hurt. If you resist it shall be a waste of life." He held his sword slightly higher, and far more menacingly.  
  
Gorion snorted in defiance, but his brave front was imperfect. "You're a fool if you think I would trust your benevolence. Stand aside and you and your lackeys will be unhurt."  
  
The armored figure laughed, "I'm sorry that you feel that way, old man."  
  
"Run children, get out of here!" Gorion shouted, turning to Jade and Onyx and shooing them with head-gestures while his arms began to wave artistically in what his wards recognized as the beginning motions of magic.   
  
Neither Onyx nor Jade were about to abandon their father. This was what they had been trained for. Their combat teachings were with them. Their right hands lifted and pulled back their arrows to their cheeks, and each shot first for the woman, who seemed to be trying to cast. Both arrows struck her in the chest, but not before she had finished her incantation. Onyx and Jade felt tingling waves of invisible, unfamiliar, and unwelcome energy surround them. Suddenly, and without explanation, each of them, who had been ready to fight only a moment before, were now both overcome with an overwhelming, irrational fear. A terrifying panic, as if every demon in hell were upon them.   
  
Nearly dropping their bows, they turned and fled into a nearby copse of trees. They crouched in the darkness, shivering uncontrollably, scared out of their wits like children half their age. They watched helplessly as a lightning bolt Gorion had cast shot through one of the ogres and immediately reduced it to a pile of ash. The other was advancing, but Gorion gave it a similar treatment just in the nick of time. AS their father prepared another spell, the armored man was upon him, holding his sword back for a mighty swing.  
  
Completing some spell unfamiliar to his wards, a glowing sabre of green energy grew forth from Gorion's hands, and swung it upwards to parry his foe's blade. The weapons struck with an electric crackle, and the dark red glow of the armor man's sword flashed more brightly, as did his golden eyes.   
  
Several more times each they swung, Gorion's ethereal green blade making a deep hum as it cut through the air to block his adversary's. As they duel of glowing swords wore on, their robed father seemed to tire, and the armored man remained calm and determined, though his breathing was deep and monstrous.   
  
At last, the monk's sword flickered and vanished, but he stared down his foe without fear.  
  
"If you strike me down," Gorion shouted, "I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."  
  
The armored man laughed and pointed with one metal finger while raising his weapon with the other. "You do not know the power of the dark side."   
  
Onyx and Jade gasped from the bushes, still frozen and silent in terror. For the rest of their days, the next few moments would be seared into their minds, in agonizing slow motion.   
  
As the sword slashed through Gorion, there was no blood, no gore, no scream. His form simply crumpled. His cloak fell to the ground, empty.   
  
_Noooooo!!_ Onyx and Jade mouthed screams, but no sound came out, and this probably saved them.   
  
The armored man roared triumphantly and looked around, briefly at the piles of ashes that his ogres had become, and then at the woman who was lying on the ground with two arrows sprouting from her chest. Hoisting her body up on his shoulder and wedging it between the spikes of his armor, he cursed, and looked around. His golden, glowing eyes seemed as though they could piece the darkness, and their own souls.   
  
He looked around, not seeming to see them, but as if knowing they were there, and laughed into the darkness. "You can run and hide from your destiny for only so long. What you have seen before you is an act of one thing - power. And you, both of you, carry it too. You will be told it is a burden - it is not. It is a blessing. In time, you too will learn to wield it, or you will die. You cannot resist it. You shall have to master it, and we shall meet again. Do not disappoint me."  
  
With that, he turned and marched off.   
  
After several more minutes, Onyx and Jade at last felt the fear subside and had the courage to emerge from the bushes. They held their bows drawn, fresh arrows ready even as their fingers trembled with natural fear, and looked about for their foe, in vain.   
  
"What came over us?" Onyx whispered in despair, "I...I never thought I'd just run from a battle like that, and now father is dead. I don't know what came over me."  
  
Jade sighed. "It was a spell of fear, obviously. Haven't you ever felt the tingle of magic before? Though it doesn't bring back father, we cannot blame ourselves."  
  
Onyx furrowed his brow, still not satisfied. "Were we stronger, we might have resisted it."   
  
"Guilt will not bring him back either."  
  
The young paladin walked over to Gorion's halved cloak and knelt by it. He clasped it in his hands, and looked down at it, then up at the starry sky. He took off his helm, and tears began to stream from his cheeks as he spoke to the heavens. "I have failed you, father. My heart was overcome by fear, and whether it be my own or sorcery, I thus fled my post, and you have paid for my cowardice. My first battle of any import, and I flee, and fail! I swear upon your memory, father, that some day I shall be impervious to fear."  
  
"And," he finished as he rose, "I will avenge you, father. That man, or monster, whoever or whatever he was, will die by my sword."  
  
"Unless," Jade snarled, standing tall beside him, "He dies by mine."   
  
After Onyx had stood over Gorion's robe in silence for awhile, Jade walked over to him. "I mourn his loss no less than you, but we must be gone lest that man return. Let us take Gorion's things, that they may be of use in information or value. It is what he would want."  
  
Onyx nodded, not irrational in his grief. They found some money, Gorion's dagger, and a letter. Holding it up to the moonlight and trying to shield it from the rain, they read over it together.  
  
_My friend Gorion,  
  
Please forgive the abruptness with which I now write, but time is short and there is much to be done. What we have long feared may soon come to pass, though not in the manner foretold, and certainly not in the proper time frame. As we both know, forecasting these events has proved increasingly difficult, leaving little option other than a leap of faith. We have done what we can for those in thy care, but the time nears when we must step back and let matters take what course they will. We have, perhaps, been a touch too sheltering to this point.  
  
Despite my desire to remain neutral to this matter, I could not, in good conscience, let events proceed without some measure of warning. The other side will move very soon, and I urge thee to leave Candlekeep this very night, if possible. The darkness may seem equally threatening, but a moving target is much harder to hit, regardless of how sparse the cover. A fighting chance is all that can be asked for at this point.  
  
Should anything go awry, do not hesitate to seek aid from travelers along the way. I do not need to remind thee that it is a dangerous land, even without our current concerns, and a party is stronger than an individual in all respects. Should additional assistance be required, I understand that Jaheira and Khalid are currently at the Friendly Arm Inn. They know little of what has passed, but they are ever thy friends and will no doubt help however they can.  
  
Luck be with us all.  
I'm getting to old for this.  
  
-E  
_  
  
"_NEUTRAL?_" It was only fear or attracting again the main with the glowing eyes that kept Jade's scream from perhaps being heard all the way back to Candlekeep. "_NEUTRAL?_"  
  
"Some friend," Onyx nodded bitterly.  
  
"E?" Jade at length, recovering some calm, rubbed her chin. "Someone old, obviously well connected. I told you Gorion had shady affiliations. But what could these assassins want with him?"  
  
"Us," Onyx corrected. "The large man said 'hand over your _wards_'. It is about us. Why, I cannot imagine, and I almost feel narcissistic just for thinking it. We were just two orphans, novice warriors, neither of any great good or evil, of no political importance or anything. We grew up in a _bubble_! How could someone from outside possibly have any interest in us? But it can no longer be otherwise."  
  
Jade nodded. It was absurd but undeniable.   
  
They split the money, and each took half the cloak - painful souveneirs. Both shivering in the rain, the two decided to take shelter under a thicket, after wandering far from the scene of Gorion's death lest assassins return, and for the same reasons didn't pitch their tents. There, lying hidden under thick bushes and upon pine needles, still in armor and with their longbows in hand, they dozed off, and slept uncomfortably indeed, their dreams filled with confusion, anger, and fear.


	4. E

"Do not cast all hope away. Tomorrow is unknown. Rede oft is found at the rising of the Sun."   
  
- Legolas   
  
"The wise speak only of what they know."   
  
- Gandalf   
  
  
  
4. (This Chapter Brought To You By The Letter) 'E'   
  
  
  
Onyx and Jade awoke, each from a fog of unpleasant dreams, which largely replayed the horrible events of the previous night. The armored man growing only larger and scarier, themselves smaller and more cowardly, and Gorion's death more and more inevitable.   
  
They ached from their uncomfortable sleeping positions, and were drenched from night rain and soggy pine needles, although the torrents had now stopped and the sun shone. They stood up, and each took turns guarding with outward eyes and drawn longbow while the other took off his or her mail to wipe out dirt and change tunics, a poor excuse for a bath, but what would have to do for now.   
  
As he looked into the rising sun, Onyx whispered a few words of prayer and praise to Lathander, and though to himself, _Look on the bright side. You and Jade are unharmed, and together. And though we cannot return to Candlekeep, I would not anyway - whatever evil seeks us would find us there, and in so doing might harm those dear to us, around whom we lingered. _Though thankful, he hoped this day would bring better tidings than the last.   
  
And perhaps the Morninglord heard his prayers and answered, for they had scarcely appeared their hiding place in the brush when a purple-leather-clad teenage came bounding up across the wet grass.   
  
"Heya, yep, it's me Imoen!" Her face was a sight brighter and more welcome than the rising of the sun. "Sorry to follow you, but I never get out of Candlekeep and those monks are such a bore. Never any could coin in their pockets, neither!"   
  
Jade was unmoved, and stared coldly at her friend. "Gorion is dead."   
  
Imoen's face fell a league. "Oh...oh no....." her bright eyes shined even more, with the glaze of tears. "I'm SO sorry. I kinda figured something bad might happen to you out here."   
  
Jade looked at her suspiciously. "How could you have 'figured', Im? Gorion didn't even tell us."   
  
"I...accidentally...read a letter on his desk the other day. Can't remember exactly what it said, but he might still have...it might be on his...body."   
  
"We...retrieved it, Immy," Onyx held the letter up. "And his body is...no more. It vanished as he was cut down."   
  
"Oh..." Imoen bit her lip, her face darkening as they had never seen it. "Oh god, I am _so_ sorry." Imoen looked deathly serious, and that alone was saddening.   
  
"Well," she perked up again at length, "I'm not gonna let you two wander all alone out here. Never let my friends down, no sir! I'm gonna stay with you, I will!"   
  
Jade sighed, but smiled in spite of herself.   
  
"Thanks, Immy," Onyx smiled, "We'd love to have your company...but you know the road, and our very company, will not draw danger."   
  
Imoen bounded up to him and took his hand, giving him a hearty smile as she looked into his eyes and spoke. "I will always be willing to travel with ya, Ony, no matter what path ya take."   
  
_Imoen and Onyx walked hand in hand along the sea cliffs outside Candlekeep. __  
  
"We're both gonna leave here someday, ya know," she told him.   
  
"Yeah," he nodded, "This is home, but I kinda look forward to it."   
  
"You're gonna leave to go on mighty heroic adventures or somethin', I bet. I wonder what I'll do? Maybe I could do acting or something? Or be a sneak and play jokes on old meanies like Ulraunt in other towns?"   
  
"We could always go together," he smiled at her. "In the stories, adventurers always travel with friends. And there's no better friend that you, Immy."   
  
"Okie dokie!" she giggled. "I'll always be willing to travel with ya Ony! No matter where we go!"_   
  
He hugged her and took her hand, and she reached with her other hand out for Jade's, and the three turned east, Imoen skipping and Onyx and Jade striding, facing the rising sun and the road ahead.   
  
-----------------------   
  
"Where'd you get that?" Onyx asked Imoen after an hour or so of walking along the road, as the girl showed off the wand of magic missiles she now had.   
  
"I...um...found it!" the girl bubbled. Onyx rolled his eyes, and let it drop at that. He tried not to inquire too deeply into these things. When paladins and thieves travel together, he was beginning to see, sometimes it is simply best one does not inquire too much of the other.   
  
"Magic is neat-o!" Imoen smiled. "I even figured out how to use this!" She stared at the end of the wand, which had a large pink gem set in it. "It's even pink! My favorite color! I wonder if there's lots of pink magic?"   
  
Jade sighed quietly. Then her eyes noticed a figure on the road ahead. Or at least, a bright-red walking robe. All that could be seen of any person that might reside within, was an egregiously long white beard, and a gaunt hand that held a walking stick.   
  
Onyx and Jade tightened their left-hand grips on their longbows. Their right hands rested upon their longsword hilts, but were ready to dart to their quivers. Imoen, looking nervous but following their example, pulled her shortbow off her back.   
  
"Classical wizard look?" Jade mumbled to her companions under his breath. "Bit out of style..."   
  
"Yeppers," Imoen stuck out her tongue adorably. "Looks like a bad ripoff of the wizard guy from _The Halfling_..."   
  
"Ho there wanderer!" The walking robe called, in an elderly but smug voice that issued from beneath the point hat atop it.   
  
"Stay thy course a moment to indulge an old man," the figure continued in the voice of a weal-meaning but meddlesome grandfather, stopping before them, and resting wearily on his staff. "It's been nigh unto a tenday since I've seen a soul walking this road, and I've been without decent conversation since. Traveling nowadays appears to be the domain of either the desperate or the deranged; If thou woulds't pardon my intrusion, might I inquire which pertains to thee."   
  
Jade snorted, tossing back her scarlet hair. "Pestering stangers about their mental state doesn't seem all that well-adjusted to me. Perhaps you'd do well to measure yourself by your own standards, old man?" The young fighter hung on the last words acerbically, her full lips pursed tight.   
  
"Well, deranged it is then," the old man chuckled smugly, his eyes glimmering beneath bushy white eyebrows, not betraying an iota of surprise at Jade's retort. "I shall..."   
  
"Please, _kind sir_," Onyx interrupted, voice voice cold, blunt, and firm, "Don't call her deranged." _My sister that is. Not that I'm telling **you** that._ "Or leer at her like that. Thanks."   
  
The old man fumbled for a moment, moving his lips silently, like an actor drawing a blank on his next line. At length, repeating his last two words, he answered, "I shall leave thee, if that is what thou dost wish. Heed my words however: treat strangers with more respect, at least until thou've determined if they are a threat, and perhaps more powerful than they seem." The old man lifted his wide hat further to reveal an ancient but sly face, and the youths could swear they saw lightning in his eyes, but then he let his hat fall over them again. "Do not dally about on these roads for all. Someone with they manners will not last an eve."   
  
"Are you threa-" Jade scoffed, but Onyx coughed over her. "Thank you for your advice, sir," he spoke with forced politeness and calm, though the brimming sarcasm likely wasn't lost on the leering codger.   
  
Jade gritted her teeth, even more reluctant to swallow her pride. _Coward_, she glanced briefly at her brother before accosting the old man again. But she knew what her brother was thinking. If a wizard, it would not do to fight needlessly. If an old man, he didn't want her cutting him down for the mere affrontery of the tongue and lechery of the eye.   
  
But if her brother hand't been there, oh, things might have been different. Jade glared daggers at at the old codger and made a silent promise to herself.   
  
"If perchance you happen to be traveling north," the old man continued in a recitory manner. "The Friendly Arm Inn is but a short distance in that direction, and its doors are open to all. I have no doubt that thy friends shall be there, waiting with open arms. My sympathies for any hardships the road may have inflicted upon thee, though I am certain everything shall turn out for the best."   
  
Onyx and Jade exchanged arched eyebrows. _We spoke of no friends_, their blue and green eyes said, _And he mentioned 'hardships' with almost forced casualness._ Jade spoke, "What friends, old man? We spoke of none."   
  
The old man hesitated for the slimmest fraction of a second before non-sequitoring, "My, but I have wasted too much of thy time and said too much already. I shall take my leave and with thee all the best. Farewell, or til we meet again, whichever comes first!"   
  
The three young people each gave goodbyes with varying degrees of politeness, and the man continued west, perhaps towards Candlekeep. Jade and Onyx exchanged glances; naught needed to be said. _He knows._   
  
"If he were friend," Onyx spoke, "He should have been helpful, not cryptic."   
  
"But if he were foe," Jade rejoined, "He shouldn't have just passed by."   
  
"We might say then," Onyx suggested, "That he is neutral."   
  
"Much like," Jade answered, "'E'."   
  
Imoen pouted. "The wizard guy in the story was alot nicer. If that stick-in-the-mud was trying for the same image, he's not doin' too good, huh guys?" Her friends nodded.   
  
As they walked east, Imoen kept curiously looking over her shoulder at the figure, who rather than gradually disappear over the horizon, seemed all at once to just vanish. Imoen thought that was funny. She had very keen eyes.


	5. A LongUnexpected Parlay

My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end.   
  
A traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend.   
  
- Gandalf   
  
  
Oft evil will shall evil mar.   
  
- Theoden   
  
  
In nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.   
  
- Haldir   
  
  
  
  
**5. A Long-Unexpected Parlay**   
  
The sun was bright, the air cool, and a halfling and a young man were walking south along a great road.   
  
The halfling was humming to himself, singing the words in his head so as not to disturb his companion.   
  
_The greatest adventure is what lies ahead. __  
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.   
The chances, the changes are all yours to make.   
The mold of your life is in your hands to break..._   
  
The voice in his head became not his own, but that of the uncle who had first sung this to him, during his childhood in Gullykin not so long ago, and his thoughts wandered.   
  
_"It's a dangerous business, Monty, going outside your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." __  
  
"Neat, uncle Bago."   
  
"We Bagville-Sackinses were very well respected, and never did anything unexpected, until that dottering old Terminsel and those seven dwarves showed up at Sack-End with a mad quest to slay the black dragon Acydrayne and rescue that princess, Ice Pale."   
  
"I like that story. I should like to go out into the Road someday."   
  
"Hmm...well I do need to return this little bit of jewelry, an earring, in fact, that I borrowed from...ah, what was her name? Melissa? Tall lady with with auburn hair, likes to wear feathers in it. Can't miss her when you finally see her. Here, take this earring. Terminsel thought I should take it somewhere else and destroy it, but I've always felt that was simply because Melissa went for me. Petty ol' bugger. Yes, take this earring, and go off and see the world. Have an adventure...or three! Not sure where you can find her, but I know who might lead you there. But do be careful with this it, with my one earring. It is very...precious."_   
  
His companion, meanwhile, was biting his knuckles and having scattered daydreams of his own.   
  
_A pretty scarlet-haired girl...so strong and nice and cute...ohhh, the rabbits! They're everywhere! Get them off! STOP TOUCHING MEEEE!!!! Oh, and it's all His fault, yes it is.... __  
  
Bully! Onyx! We hates it forever!!!_   
  
The young man shook his head, and suddenly couldn't remember what he'd been thinking of only a second before. He vaguely remembered something nice...it had gone all wrong...   
  
And then, he could recall only something nice and beautiful, a memory just out of reach like a saying on the tip of one's tongue, and he was left with only the feeling one has when waking, and knowing one just had a beautiful, blissful dream that cannot be remembered, leaving only the bittersweet knowledge that it was so.   
  
  
  
-----------   
  
  
  
"Hold, Montaron, these young wayfarers are in need. Someone has set about thee, stranger, and you have barely escaped with your life."   
  
Onyx, Imoen, and Jade exchanged curious glances. The figure accosting them was a green-robed young man with wild blonde hair and a wilder smile upon a face with numerous tattoos, making it look thoroughly clownlike an accentuating the oddity of his manic pearly grin. While twitching, he had spoken these words in a fruity voice to another figure only slightly less odd looking - a wryly grinning and extremely short man in studded leather, his head adorned with greasy black hair and a golden earring.   
  
"Aye, Xzar," crooned the short man, whom the three youths recognized from their learning as a halfling, "They looked to have been roughed up quite well."   
  
Onyx and Imoen exchanged quiet gasps. _Xzar?_   
  
Jade's jaw dropped open. "Xzar?" she peered quizically at him, studying the featured beneath the tattoos. _Oh gods, it is..._"Xzar! Oh my...it's you!" She strode forward and opened her arms, smiling. "It's me! Jade! From Candlekeep!" She shook her neck-length scarlet hair. "Look! My hair's still short! It has been since you...."   
  
"AAIEEEE!" Xzar screeched, hiking up his skirt and dancing backwards. "STOP TOUCHING MEEEEE!!"   
  
"No!...Xzar! It's me! Jade! Jade..." The young woman's hands fell down, and she stared dejectedly into the ground as Xzar tried to hide behind his companion, who proved rather too short to be of much use in that matter.   
  
_How..._ Jade choked bitterly, _He doesn't recognize any of us._   
  
The halfling called 'Montaron' peered up at Jade darkly. "Ye best keep yer distance from him, lass," he grinned, "Me, on the other hand...." he shot her a sleazy wink, followed by one to Imoen. Jade snorted and shrugged, but behind her, Imoen wrinkled her nose and clasped Onyx's hand.   
  
Montaron then broke into his best attempt at a friendly, innocent smile, and coughed, which seemed to signal something to Xzar, who crept out from 'behind' the halfling and grinned like a mad huckster. "Indeed," the blonde young man cooed silkily to the three. "I can offer you healing potions, if you wish, as a token of good will."   
  
The three shared nods. "Let's see 'em," Jade spoke, maintaining an impassive front. Xzar handed over three blue potions. Not actually in need of them at the moment, she handed one to Imoen and one to Onyx, and they briefly opened and sniffed them before putting them away, satisfied.   
  
Xzar smiled. "Nothing to fear from three simple potions, and I'll not even hold you in debt, though your conscience knows otherwise."   
  
"Just like all good people," the Montaron fellow gave another strange, mischievious grin, his statement sounding as prepared as each he and the blonde man had issued so far.   
  
"So what's the catch?" Jade smirked as Xzar was opening his mouth to go into it.   
  
He began, his eyes focusing lucidly on her, but betraying no recognition. "Perhaps as payment you would go with us to Nashkel. It is a troubled area and we mean to investigate some disturbing rumors surrounding the local mine. Some...acquaintances...are very concerned about the iron shortage. Specifically, where to lay blame in the matter. You would be useful, though I'll not hold you to it. We are to meet the mayor of the town, a man named Berrun Ghastkill, I believe."   
  
"Your conscience be your guide," Montaron licked his lips, looking pointedly at Imoen. "The mayor would pay well even for information, I hear."   
  
"So..." Onyx looked at them skeptically, "How'd you gentlemen decide on this undertaking anyway? Anyone else with you?"   
  
Xzar and Montaron exchanged extremely nervous glanced. Xzar twitched, and began to bite his knuckles and mutter something utterly incomprehensible under his breath. Montaron sneered at his companion, then looked way up at Onyx and began, "It's a living. Oh, no, just us two..."   
  
".."nobody hear but us chickens!" Xzar interrupted proudly, then his eyes darted around like a hunted animal's. "And the rabbits... ssshhhhh..... they're in the ground....."   
  
The halfling glared at his companion peevishly and continued, "...so we decided to head south to take a look. Hard to find work these days, it-is." He grinned proudly up at Onyx, Imoen, and Jade, as if expecting them to applaud a thespian performance.   
  
"Speaking of work," Onyx smiled, "Exactly what sort of professions are you?" His and Jade's eyes met. _X was already learning wizardy from Ulraunt when they took him away..._   
  
"Excellent question," the greasy halfling grinned proudly, "I am a very skilled weapons man, but also quite familiar with a number of mechanical devices, locks and traps and such among them, particualry the opening and the disarming. And, though I'd urge ye not to think of me as a stout pipe-smoking farmer like the rest o' me kin, I am as skilled as any hobbit in remaining unseen if I wish. All useful when navigating a mine that might harbor...unfriendly elements, I should think."   
  
Montaron then gave Xzar a kick in the shin, and the tittering blonde man looked over the other three nervously and began, "I am Xzar!! Yes, I am Xzar. I study magic. Many magics. Oh, wonderful magics! They keep the teddybear hordes out the Fish Prince's lingerie armoire! I am the necromancer Xzar!" He lifted his arms triumphantly, causing his green robe to flair faux-dramatically, and pointed at several random points on the horizon, as if zapping them. His voice lifted into dissonant sing-songyness. "Oooh, old Elf-Wizard cast a spell, e-i-e-i-AIEE! And in that spell there was a zap, e-i-e-i-AIEEE! With a zap-zap here!" his index finger whipped the horizon, "and a zap-zap there," another finger accosted a tree, "here a zap, there a zap, everywhere a zap-zap, old Elf-Wizard cast a spell, i-e-i-e-AIEEEE!!!"   
  
Onyx, Imoen, and Jade exchanged glances that were various degrees, curious, amused, and skeptical. "Let's discuss," Onyx told his friends. Jade gave Xzar and Montaron a brushing-away signal and the two turned. The three backed up good number a few paces and huddled.   
  
"They're...weird," Imoen wrinkled their nose. "I remember X from before he left Candlekeep. He was a weirdo then too."   
  
"They're...manageable," Jade frowned at Imoen.   
  
"I sense evil intent, for what it's worth," Onyx nodded, "And we all know the terms he and I parted on. But...we were twelve. He doesn't seem...any better, but...I would give him another chance."   
  
"Yes," Jade glared at her brother. "Onyx, I think you of all people owe it to him. And as for me," her green eyes flicked to the robed wizard, "He...he was my friend. I..." a single tear left her eye, "I'm very glad to see him again. Even in...this state." _Does he really not recognize me?_ she asked herself bitterly. "I...well I am both sad and happy to see him....like this."   
  
The three huddled closer, Onyx putting an arm comfortingly over his sister, Imoen an arm around her waist. "But..." Imoen pleaded, shedding a few tears herself, "He...I'm scared, Jadey. Of him, and the little creep."   
  
"Please," Jade hugged Imoen, "I have to give Xzar a chance. I can't just...find him again after eight years and walk on by!"   
  
"I rue that as well," Onyx sighed, "Gorion said companions on the road are an asset. But if they so much as leer at Imoen, they're history." He looked caringly at the girl in question and held her more closely with his huddling arm, and she smiled back at him "They touch her, they're dead." He looked pointedly at Jade. "I may regret some things, but not putting her safety first."   
  
He looked sidelong to wear the other two stood a number of paces away.   
  
"We'll be nice to them, if they be nice to us!" Xzar grinned down at his grumbling associate.   
  
Onyx grimaced. _Now that I see him again, I do pity him..._   
  
His attention snapped back as Imoen's smile broadened. "Ony, I feel a lot safer with you around. You too, Jadey. Maybe we could ask them about meeting those two friends' of Gorion's at the Friendly Arm first, before heading south?"   
  
Jade looked skeptical. "Do we really need two more old monks with us?"   
  
"Jade," Onyx looked at her, "It's worth checking out."   
  
Jade bit her lip. "The man with the glowing eyes knew Father's first move. And that would have been his second."   
  
Onyx nodded bitterly. "He'll find us sooner or later either way. We must amass what help we can."   
  
Brother and sister locked eyes, each reading the same unpleasant thought in the other's.   
  
_The utter incompetence of the two thugs. __  
  
Gorion's ensuing flight.   
  
Intercepted by the man with the glowing eyes.   
  
Murder...not within Candlekeep's watched walls._   
  
Onyx flicked his eyes in the direction of Xzar and Montaron. "Jade, you talk to them. You were closest to X."   
  
The three broke huddle, and walked back over to the other two. Montaron was looking on quizically as Xzar sang, "...oooh, Montaron Montaron bo Baron fee fi fo Faron mi mi mo Maron....Montaron!!" his finger shot out in the direction of the three, and he stopped suddenly and shrieked, "Hiyeee! 'Tis the three Vanguards of Doom, come to serve toast at the End of the World! Prepare the flying-castles and charbroil the moon!"   
  
Montaron kicked the wizard, "Can it, you loon! It's the wayfarers!"   
  
"Oooh," Xzar grinned as the three, "Of course it is. The talking bats agree." The young necromancer looked skywards and giggled.   
  
"Montaron, Xzar," Jade called, "Your quest sounds worthy and profitable, but we would first like to go to the Friendly Arm Inn, but a short jaunt north, to meet two other companions who may be off assistance on this quest."   
  
"We had best not tarry!" Xzar bit his knuckles, "But 'tis best to travel accompanied..."   
  
"Ye be owin' us for our time!" Montaron grumbled, his eyes looking up at Imoen's eyes, then losing some altitude, but staying on her. "O course, I'm sure ye can make it up..." Imoen shuddered as the halfling's gaze caressed her up and down. Xzar, too, seemed to look, not quite at, but _through_ her, not with physical lewdness, but...in a dispassionate way, as if the demented wizard were analyzing her - body, mind, and soul. It was far more disturbing, she decided. She felt a chill as she never had before, and hoped never to again.   
  
Onyx caught Imoen's look, like that of a frightened deer. "I can't take this," she whispered to him and placed the center of her body behind his left arm.   
  
"That does it," Onyx snarled, extending his armored arm out further over her, taking her left hand with his left, his arm over the chest the halfling was staring at. He pointedly stared the three-feet-plus down at the wretch. "You, little man, no longer need be hindered by us."   
  
"No! Y-" Jade glared daggers at her brother, but when she caught Imoen's pained gaze, fell silent.   
  
"What!?" Montaron grimaced, then his scarred face became calm and sly and he smiled up at the paladin with thinly-veiled malice. "Sleep lightly, taskmaster!" he hissed, his tongue as sharp as his shortsword.   
  
"Be on your way," Onyx stated impassively.   
  
Jade snarled. Her mind was filled with pain and rage. But she understood. She looked at Onyx. Then Imoen. Then Montaron. Then Xzar. And she made her decision.   
  
"Montaron," Jade called to the halfling, who ceased snarling at her brother with the manner and approximate dimensions of a large rabid dog, and smiled at her, "You and Xzar may accompany me. _South._" She glared at her brother.   
  
"Ooh goodie!" Xzar clapped his hands excitedly "I always did want to go south! You know, they say it leads to the land with the coconut-juggling hippopotami, where a single rose makes a madman king!"   
  
"He just needs the rose..." Imoen mumbled into Onyx's shoulder.   
  
"Aye, maybe we'll go there after the mines, X," Montaron laughed, seeming now more amused than annoyed. "Well, miss Jade was it..."   
  
"Yes, Jade," the warrior stepped up to the halfling, in a manner he couldn't misconstrue as anything but threatening. And he didn't. "Keep your hands to weapons and thieving, and we'll get along just fine." She looked up at Xzar. "Right, Xzar?" she cooed.   
  
The necromancer, though still showing no recognition, bounced happily up and down, clapping his hands and giggling, "Yes, mommy! On slippery feet of comet speed like dancing cats!"   
  
"Well, sis," Onyx extended his hand to Jade, "Are you sure it has to be this way?"   
  
"I'm sorry, bro," Jade answered in a low voice, and took a step toward her brother and friend and away from the halfling and the wizard. Her eyes stared deeply into her brother's. "I have to try." She looked to Imoen. "I'm sorry, Immy."   
  
"No, I'm sorry," Imoen shuddered, "But I just can't...I'm not big'n'tough like you, Jadey. It's not that I don't trust you and Ony, but..." _Those eyes..._ Montaron's, the little monster. And Xzar's... _I can't have a crazy wizard looking at me like he wants to dissect my soul...I just can't!_ "...I just can't. I'm sorry."   
  
"Well then," Jade held her mouth firm, even as the corner quivered, "Looks like our paths are about to diverge. Perhaps we'll meet in Nashkel."   
  
"Yes, I hope so," Onyx's sapphire eyes met her emeralds, "Fare thee well."   
  
"Fare thee well."   
  
The fighter drew away from the paladin, and gave a come-along gesture to the necromancer and the halfling. Xzar bounded to her side like a happy puppy, and Montaron trudged alongside the necromancer, shooting a blatantly threatening glare to Onyx as the three turned south.   
  
As they drew away down the road, Jade began to methodically question each of her two new companions, causing Xzar to twitch with extreme nervousness and agitation, and Montaron to smile faux-charismatically and deliver nice answers. Or direct threats.   
  
"Oh well," Imoen sighed as the three grew smaller and smaller, "Those two are weird-o-weird! I hope we see Jade again," she pouted sadly, and looked up at her best friend Onyx.   
  
"We will yet...she's my sister, and might as well be yours..." the paladin sighed and hugged her with one arm, "Well, we still have each other," he took her hand.   
  
"You betcha!" Imoen grinned and practically leapt into the air as they turned around again and continued north, Imoen skipping and Onyx striding, hand in hand.   
  
In the spot along the Coast Way of the long-unexpected parlay, the ground was much trod, and a five-petaled wildflower had been trampled into the dirt.


	6. She Fought the Law

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.   
  
- Haldir   
  
  
**6. She Fought the Law**   
  
When traveling in the woods on summer kobold-hunting missions, from which anyone living in or trying to visit or leave Candlekeep benefited greatly, Onyx, like Jade, had learned from Jondalar that keeping one's bow in hand, perhaps with an arrow in the other, is a wise move.   
  
Though holding hands, Onyx and Imoen now had long and short bows in their free hands as they respectively strode and skipped north along the Coast Way, and when a large, roaring shape became visible in a clearing ahead, they were glad for it.   
  
"Ogre," Onyx said, recognizing the brutes that had flanked Gorion's golden-eyed murderer the night before. For one horrible moment, the young paladin thought he might now be glimpsing a reconstituted war party of the same man's, but then realized this ogre was alone. Nevertheless, it was charging them with a mad roar, holding high a massive morning star that was probably larger than Imoen.   
  
_Hit and run,_ Onyx thought. _First thing Jondalar taught us about large creatures. Like rabid bears._ Unfortunatley, as he was now seeing, bipedal ogres are about as fast as humans. They _look_ much slower at a glance, for the eye will see the _rate_ of their stride is quite slow, but may miss that each stride is much more than a man's.   
  
Onyx and Imoen unleashed arrows at the charging creature. They were both naturally adept if less than experienced marksmen, and planted several in the creature's hideous blue-green-grayish hide, but still it came.   
  
"Split up!" Onyx yelled, "You run left, I right. I'll try to get him to follow me. But whoever he follows, runs, other shoots! Go!"   
  
As Imoen bolted away, she looked over her shoulder, frightened, not at the ogre but at the fact that her friend was holding his ground for a moment more. Though her mind knew he did it for her, her heart felt only fear for her friend.   
  
Onyx fired another arrow from where he stood, shouting at the top of his lungs and letting Imoen get further away, both for the hope the ogre would go after him rather than her. The paladin hooped and hollered at the oncoming ogre after another arrow, still doing his best to draw its attention though he seemed to have it. When Imoen had made herself scarce and the monster was nearly upon him, he turned and dashed as fast he could, which despite his splint mail and the large shield on his back was still quite fast. He had long legs, a wide stride, and a strong heart and lungs, and running had been one of the many routines that his indeed routine Candlekeep life had consisted of, and there were paths in its environs his fleet feet had galloped over nearly every morning of his adolescense.   
  
It had been done for the ideals of athleticism which were intrinsic to his ethos, but all ideals emerge over the ages because of more practical needs such as the present one.   
  
Over the roar of the ogre, he could hear the whistling of what must be Imoen's arrows. The ogre grunted as some of them made dull piercing sounds, but the thunder of its feet did not slow.   
  
After outdistancing the ogre by probably fifteen seconds and reaching the edge of a thin copse of trees, Onyx turned on a gold piece and began firing arrows, most making their mark, but still it came. _Uh..oh.._ he realized, as the ogre drew closer, _Can I keep running? Imoen's arrows have stopped...I can't go too far...We'd get separated. Which is better than dead, but..._   
  
Then inspiration hit him. He backed up, so that the bark of a large tree was almost at his back. The massive, drooling monster bore down upon him, and prepared a mighty swing that would surely leave him a bloody pulp against the trunk.   
  
If he hadn't leapt aside into the bushes at just the right moment, that is. Which he did at the height of the ogre's wind-up. Its morning star smashed into the tree, splintering halfway through, so that as the beast drew its weapon out again, the structurally weakened tree cracked, and began to fall, sure enough, upon the ogre, as it had gutted out its own side of the trunk. The creature gave an awful scream just before the several tons of oakwood crashed against and cracked even its thick skull, and slumped to the ground under the felled timber, twitching, and then still.   
  
Imoen reappared a few moments later, dashing up with a look of fright. She melted into a relieved smile when she saw her friend, apparently intact. She dashed into his arms, and they shared a silent but intimate moment as their adrenaline subsided, each thankful the other was unscathed.   
  
"Wow!" Imoen gasped at length. "That was scary, but kinda neat! Hey...this ogre's wearin' two belts..."   
  
  
  
---   
  
  
  
Jade and her two new companions were making headway south along the Coast Way, which was now only a little further off, and were faring as well as could be expected on the dangerous roads of the Sword Coast.   
  
Physically, that is. Xzar's incessant and incomprehensible rambling, and Montaron's haughty little comments and snickerings were beginning to rub Jade's nerves quite raw. She questioned their sanity - though in Xzar's case it wasn't much of a question - and her decision to travel with them thus made her doubt his own. Her attempts at getting information out of them had yielded little. Montaron tended to respond to inquiries with idle threats involving waking up with a dagger in one's back, or not at all. As for Xzar, Jade had learned quite a lot about dragons with rabbit's feet, screaming clowns from the Abyss, tap-dancing demons, and eating grapes from the bosoms of succubi, but if this was useful information, it was far beyond her. She didn't yet know - and wasn't sure she wanted to - what sinister organization would hire _these_ two. Either it must be dark indeed, or its hiring procedures were thoroughly screwed up. Or both.   
  
_Worst of all,_ Jade held her face tight, _X doesn't even recognize me, or remember Candlekeep...what happened to you?_ She looked at the necromancer, who at the moment was juggling three cat-skulls. _Where are you under there, X?_   
  
The day's light began to wane, but still they pressed on. As they passed out of a copse of trees into a more thinly forested area, Montaron suddenly chuckled and smiled even though the others could see nothing. "Guess what I spy," he grinned to his human companions, his eyes gleaming red as his infravision pierced the dying light.   
  
"Others?" Jade sneered and drew her sword.   
  
"You there!" the reply came from a figure ahead, accompanied by metallic clankings. Jade, Xzar, and Montaron looked up to see a Flaming Fist soldier approaching.   
  
Jade blanched.   
  
_"No," one of the Fist grinned, "I think this boy matches Xzar's descrption. Come with us, son." He reached out a hand and attempted to smile, in a very sincere imitation of friendliness, as if these two kids were much less intellectually developed than the were. In fact, they were probably further developed now than this man would ever be. __  
  
Jade jumped in front of Xzar and shouted in his face, "RUN!!"   
  
Xzar spun on a dime and bolted away from them.   
  
"Why you little..." the Fist growled, and backhanded Jade with his mailed fist, sending her to the ground. "Ah am tha law!"_   
  
Xzar tittered.   
  
_"HEEEELP!" Xzar screamed, his arms twisted behind his back in a straight jacket as two Fist threw him into the back of the wagon, like they might a sack of potatoes, his head cracking sharply against the wooden floor. sending colored sparks across his vision and thoughts. "HEEEELP!" He looked back out at the two guards, their heads covered by helmets with wings that flared up high on the left and right sides of their heads, like the big ears of rabbits._   
  
Montaron snarled.   
  
_Montaron looked dejectedly up at a flat wooden likeness of Fist Commander Scar, which held out a flat finger four feet off the ground. Wording across the likeness's chest read 'You must be this tall to apply.' __  
  
Montaron choked bitterly, remembering that wooden flat of Elminster, holding a harp, with a gnarled finger four feet off the ground.   
  
He turned away to seek employment elsewhere._   
  
"Us?" Jade called back with dripping sarcasm, looking around at a lightly wooden landscape utterly devoid of other people.   
  
"Yes," the tin can with the Fist insignia called as it drew up to them. "You're under arrest for banditry, and highway robbery! We know you're part of that bandit group who's been terrorizing the Coast Way! Give yourselves up or there will be...trouble."   
  
"Do you always begin conversations this way?" Jade cooed faux-innocently, smiling.   
  
"Er," the soldier reached a mailed glove up to scratch his head, which failed miserably seeing as he wore a helmet. "No, but...well....No games, bandit! Come along or..."   
  
"...or you'll attack three heavily armed people by yourself," Jade sighed.   
  
"Ah represent the Flaming Fist!" the man shouted. "Ah **am** the law."   
  
Jade looked around. Crickets chirped in the wooded land, but otherwise it was quite silent. _In the middle of the woods, there is only one law, doofus._ She glanced at her sword.   
  
"Sooo..." she drawled ditzily instead, "What you're trying to say, mister Fist sir, is times being what they are, it wouldn't do to let someone who _might_ be a bandit roam about and terrorize innocent travelers?"   
  
"Yes, yes," the man nodded, more calmly, "Precisely!"   
  
"So your job," Jade began, "Is to roam these woods and arrest or captures kill anyone who might be a bandit..."   
  
"Yes..."   
  
"And a bandit is someone who roams the woods and captures or kills just anyone..."   
  
"Yes! Thank you! That's the crucial difference, you see..."   
  
"...but anyone _might_ be a bandit, so..."   
  
"So then I'd apprehend them." The soldier nodded. This all really did make quite good sense, he decided. This pretty lady certainly was helping put things into words. To bad he'd still have to arrest her...   
  
Jade sighed, and noticed with great irritation that the mercenary's gaze had left her eyes and moved lower. "I'm bored. Montaron?"   
  
"No actually," the soldier began, and reached out his open right gauntlet to shake, "My name's...AIEEEE!!!"   
  
"Aiee?" Jade snickered over the sounds of snapping tendons. "Is that Calimshani?"   
  
The halfling who did possess this name had, during the conversation, managed to creep half-circle around behind the oblivious mercenary, who had never taken his eyes off Jade - probably more because of her figure than her words - and at Jade's intonation, Montaron had slashed his short sword across the back of the man's knees, where the armor was weak. Fleshy tearing sounds could be heard as the man's tendons and ligaments were snapped like rubber bands, and he fell to his knees with a shriek that echoed inside his big, plumed helmet, his legs quite useless. Before he could react, his entire _body_ became quite useless, for the muscles of Jade's right arm bulged under her chainmail as a single waist-height swing of her longsword decapitated said body.   
  
"Pretty strong blow," Jade nodded down at Montaron with approval as the Fist's head flew off, "For a halfling."   
  
"Thank ye!" Montaron laughed happily as he cleaned his shortsword. "I once knew a pretty hobbitess, Truesword of Arvoreen she was, who'd always threaten yer' kneecaps. Pity she didn't know a good hobbit-gent when she saw one...anyway, with ol' Monty, it's the _backs_ of yer knees ye best look out for! "   
  
"Platemail's mine," Jade breathed deeply, taking in the invigorating smell of the blood. "Won't fit you anyway, Monty. Unless you're expecting a major growth spurt soon."   
  
"Hey!" Montaron growled. "Short jokes be old!"   
  
"But if you still want a helmet," Jade smiled and nodded in the direction of the Fist's head, "It's rolling away."   
  
"Oooh," Xzar clapped his hands eagerly, "And can I have what's inside?"


	7. Citizen Kagain: Risky Businessdwarf

There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much.   
  
-_The Hobbit_   
  
  
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.   
  
-Thorin Oakenshield   
  
  
  
**7. Citizen Kagain: Risky Businessdwarf**   
  
The dwarf sat calmly behind the counter, gingerly fingering each gold piece as he stacked them.   
  
_Money_, he thought. _Whoever said money was the root of all evil, was just jealous._   
  
Money moved the world, and this was a good thing. Money was dependable, objective, concrete. It was money that made the town he lived in possible. The construction, the defense, the day to day lives.   
  
Money was a promise. _Well-gotten_ money meant he had done some favor to get it. He who had money, except by thievery or taxes, had given others what they desired to get it.   
  
_Those who vilify money just want yours._   
  
Without money, there was bartering. Crude. Slow. Inefficient. And one other option: taking and stealing. An alternative to a thing, will tend to lessen the amount of a thing.   
  
_And whoever said it couldn't buy happiness, was obviously poor._   
  
But what about that other alternative: sharing? If only everyone were honest and kind... If only, if only, if only, the dwarf mused, such poetic words. If only we could live in a world of if only, what a world it would be.   
  
And if only we could, what then?   
  
Money, the dwarf knew, was information. How should a farmer choose between growing wheat or barley? Money. Profit. How else should he know what his fellows, a benevolent and communal as they might be, could use most? A small village could centrally plan. But a city, large and diverse?   
  
_Money,_ had said the dwarfish poet Emerhelm, _Which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in mead-halls without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as elves think roses._   
  
The dwarf brushed his fingers lightly over his perfect stacks of coins - arranged in a grid, he noticed, like the tall buildings of some great city which the world had not yet seen, reaching to the sky but rooted int the ground, built of money as all things must be.   
  
  
---   
  
  
"Hear Ye! Hear Ye!" called a town crier in Beregost square. "By order of His Most Radiant of Lathander Kelddath Ormlyr, governor of Beregost, and in the best interest of its peoples, forthwith there be a bounty placed upon the head of the mad cleric Bassilus, for the crimes against nature that he has committed! Anyone bringing proof of his demise to the Song of the Morning Temple shall receive no less than five thousand gold! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!"   
  
Jade and her two companions finally made it to south to Beregost, in very good shape. Xzar was babbling about how the little people were bouncing through Beregost like rabbits breathing spices and consuming the fumes of mercury and thyme. Montaron was eagerly fingering a gem as they walked through the town, and slyly glancing at various passers-by, as if appraising their suitability for the cutting of purses. Jade, proudly wearing her first-ever suit of platemail - sans the Fist insigna it had recently displayed - was looking around with a mix of cynicism and wide-eyed amazement at what for her was by far the largest human settlement she'd ever seen, although she was aware that it was just a little town in the great scheme of things.   
  
The trio was laden with the weapons, gems, and leather armor of several dozen hobgoblin and other nasties they had dispatched along the road, as well as some items looted from a caravan that had been destroyed by perhaps some of the same aforementioned bandits. Most of this gear they were eager to sell, and Montaron was leading them to a shop he said gave 'better rates than Thunderhammer's, with less questions asked.'   
  
The shop was dimly lit, indeed hardly lit at all. The only person, customer or employee that could be seen was an old dwarf barely peeking over the counter.   
  
"Er," Montaron grimaced, and looked at Jade, "This isn't quite what I remembered."   
  
Jade shrugged, looked around curiosily, and strode up to the counter.   
  
She literally had to look over the counter to see the face of a tough-looking dwarf, his beard long and white even for one of his race. It was practically a mask. "Greetings, I'm Kagain," he spoke in a whispery, almost geriatric, voice as the tall human warrior approached. "What can I do for you?"   
  
"Kagain Goldaxe!" Montaron piped up, unable to properly see the dwarf from over the counter. "Yer shop be lookin' a bit understocked, ya hairy-faced troll of a codger!"   
  
"Aye, what of it?" Kagain scoffed, but Montaron ran around the side of the counter, and the dwarf chuckled, "Well well well, Monty Sackins. What brings you back this way, you hairy-soled runt of a lad?"   
  
Jade arched a scarlet eyebrow at this greeting, and looked around at the lack of for-sale merchandise on the shelves. "Ummmm, what kind of shop is this anyhow?"   
  
The dwarf seemed to grin, but beneath his long, white beard, it was difficult to be sure. _That beard must make for great poker faces...very convenient for a bartering type,_ Jade thought.   
  
The dwarf answered matter-of-factly, "I run an escort business."   
  
**_Escort_**_ business??_ Jade thought angrily. _Why, that puny little pimp..._   
  
It must have shown in her face, for the dwarf chuckled, "No, silly young girl! Not _that_ kind of escort! I hire mercenaries to _escort_ caravans on route from Amn to Baldur's Gate."   
  
"Ye no longer an armory too?" Montaron grumbled.   
  
The dwarf muttered something coarse, even by dwarfish standards, under his breath, and then spoke up, "Aye, Monty. Thunderhammer kept undercuttin' me...can't win a price war when that crook's gotten himself subsidized courtsey a' mayor Keldath.." He wiggled his stubby fingers like someone strumming a harp, and Montaron snickered and echoed the gesture, "...and his bunch of theocrats running this town out of the Song of the Morning Temple." Kagain dry-spat at the floor. "Then they've the gall to complain about my 'price-gouging'! Well, anyone can lower his prices when the town's alms make up the difference! Buncha mealy-mouthed dawn-loving pinky cultists."   
  
Jade smirked, nodding along with the dwarf. "Oh, you'd just love my brother - he's a Divine Champion of all things."   
  
"That so, lassie?" Kagain snickered. "Well, let's hope you've a bit more sense. Speaking of which," he segued smoothly, "Right now I'm lookin' for some strong sword arms, and I'm willing to pay high. It seems that one of these caravans under my protection never arrived at Baldur's Gate, and I want ta know what happened. You look like a strong group of warriors; interested in a job?"   
  
"Sure," Jade began, in as disinterested, nonchalant a tone as she could manage, though suddenly cut off from her home, with rather lightly loaded companions, she was in fact a fair bit desperate. "We can always use some extra money, tell us more."   
  
Kagain seemed to smirk beneath his beard, and stare through Jade rather than at her. "That's good. I've been having a lot of problems with the bandit activity lately, but they've always only taken the cargo and let to caravan go afterward. I've been catching flak from the family of some of the passengers of this caravan, after all it was the job of my mercenaries to make sure everyone got safely to Baldur's Gate. Normally I wouldn't give one damn about some stupid whiner, but one of the passengers was the son of Entar Silvershield, and in this part of the world, his word is the law. So you do want the job or not?"   
  
Xzar started to say something but Montaron kicked him in the shins, and the wizard growled menacingly at his companion but stayed silent.   
  
"I'll tell you as soon as you tell me our fee," Jade said faux-politely.   
  
"I'll pay each of you 30 gold per head, plus a share of any booty, if there's no one left alive to claim it," the dwarf stated, very business-like.   
  
Jade feigned a laugh. "30! You must be joking! Find some other small-time fool to run your errand!"   
  
Kagain smiled calmly. "Very well. There's no shortage of adventurers who'll work at such generous rates."   
  
Jade sneered, her bluff called. "Very well. 30 it is." The truth of the matter was, she would be willing to do it for almost any price, not out of desperation for money, but because she strongly suspected that they had already passed the caravan to which he referred, which moreover had been only a short jaunt north from Beregost. Easy money. And she was already mulling a second proposal.   
  
Kagain nodded. "Hey, I'm glad you guys have some sense in your heads. I have an underling who'll be in bright and early next morning, and can take care of business here while I'm gone." He chuckled and begin grabbed some equipment out from behind his desk. He threw on some dwarven mail and a winged golden helmet which hid any part of his face his bearded didn't, leaving only two eyes and a nose rimmed by metal. He hoistded on an already-packed backpack, slung some throwing axes on his belt, and grabbed a battle axe, putting his stubby fingers around a grip on the back of the head, so that he could hold it almost like a walking stick.   
  
"Well, let's get a move on," he called and was already walking to the door.   
  
Jade frowned. The dwarf seemed awfully prepared for this 'sudden excursion.'   
  
Her thoughts drifted back as Montaron chuckled to her on his way past, "Very savvy, for a human."   
  
  
------   
  
  
"You whippersnappers knew it was here all along!" Kagain half-yelled, half-laughed and angrily smashed his axeblade into an innocent tree stump next to the desecrated caravan.   
  
"I thought so," Jade smiled, looking at the remains of the same caravan his party had found and looted before reaching Beregost. "We rifled through it, and one of us recognized the Silvershield Crest."   
  
Montaron smiled proudly. This wasn't the first time he'd broken into chests bearing that insignia.   
  
Jade continued, "...and when you explained about your caravan, well, surely it was the same one."   
  
"Heh!" Kagain laughed, "Well, I can't blame someone for agreeing to easy money. But why didn't you just sell me the information right then?"   
  
"Didn't think you'd buy it - literally," Jade shrugged, "We didn't have proof."   
  
"Well, now we do," Kagain smirked, "And, though I hired you for an easier job than I thought, you did fulfill it. A deal's a deal - here's your gold," he pulled out three pouches and handed them to the others, who counted the gold coins inside and put them away.   
  
"Now I have an offer for you," Jade began, and Kagain's eyes gleamed expectantly, as if already appraising treasure, "We are on our way south to Nashkel, we mean to meet with the mayor about a commission regarding investigation of the disturbance in the mines. If you join _my_ party, you will be entitled to an equal share of any reward, or treasure we acquire along the way."   
  
Kagain scratched his beard thoughtfully, but Jade wondered how surprised, if at all, he really was. "You've got yourselves a deal. I'll be glad to investigate that; the iron crisis has been good for my business lately, what with the demand for mercenaries higher than ever; but eventually anything bad for the whole economy would be bad for me. Us mercenaries gotta buy iron weapons too, after all. And whoever's behind it likely has deep pockets worth skimming for our troubles. Let's get a move on."   
  
Xzar nervously tapped Jade on the shoulder. "The King of the Lollipops in his underwater palace of ham says we should sleep before going to Nashkel. It is late, and soon the grinning chickens with vampire fangs and the harpoon-throwing monkeys will be out! They come for us when we don't sleep, you know. I have seen it, 'tis true!"   
  
"Alright, alright," Jade turned to Kagain, "Let's set out in the morning."   
  
"You humans," Kagain spat, "No stamina at all."   
  
"Aye," Montaron grinned.   
  
The dwarf shot him a cold look. "You hobbits're even worse! Napping, eating, smoking, napping, eating, smoking..."   
  
Montaron glared back, looking up (slightly) at the dwarf. "Why, ye bloated, bearded..."   
  
"Alright, alright," Jade groaned. "Let's get back to town. You two can midget-wrestle later."


	8. Friendly Arm Intrigue

Only a small part is played in great deeds by any hero.   
  
- Gandalf   
  
  
  
**8. Friendly Arm Intrigue**   
  
  
Two half-elves sat at a tavern table.   
  
The man smiled, and flexed his fingers.   
  
_Walk softly, son, and carry a big stick._   
  
Ah, the legendary Jarek Bond, Harper 007...suave, slick, smooth, seductive.   
  
Famous. Obvious. Too good to be true.   
  
No one suspects a spy who stutters and falters.   
  
The man smiled, and gripped the hilt of his sword.   
  
_This, my son, you can trust._   
  
And he did. In Calimshan, it was all you could trust. But that was true anywhere. Except among those who were closest; those whom you truly loved.   
  
The woman gripped her quarterstaff exactly halfway down, and held it out sideways, feeling it balanced.   
  
Balance in all things.   
  
Even in _the_ Balance itself. Between this philosophy, and Good. Neither could see all ends, and no knight nor druid could so easily derive them from their internalized rhetoric.   
  
Between mankind and elfkind. She regarded the aggressive the one with disdain, the pacifism of the other with ire. To act without thinking, or to think without acting, death.   
  
Civilization and nature. She admired her elven kin for their idylllic harmony, but rued them for despising humans for lack of it - for her other kin, with no innate link to the land, without the lifepsans to beget the productivity to engineer such utopian living, could not be expected to do what the elves despised them for not doing, and she reagarded it odd that they should safeguard the innovations and secrets, while bemoaning that others ought to possess them.   
  
But, she herself offend despised her mortal kin for these failures, and they surely would corrupt, turning creation to destruction, what her other kin wisely decided not to disclose.   
  
Not many knew where the humans or halflings had come from, but she had an idea. She closed her eyes, but saw things still.   
  
_Two dark shapes glide from vine to vine. They leap down upon the jungle floor. The smaller one rises on two legs, holding a short stick, which becomes a crude hoe. The larger ones rises also, holding a long stick, which becomes a crude spear._   
  
She was, in many things, torn, of two minds, of two worlds, and her questions of balance often turned to that within herself.   
  
  
--------------   
  
  
"Wow!" Imoen exclaimed again as the Friendly Arm Inn came into view, idly twiddling the magic dagger Onyx had given her, himself given it by Hull, a kind guard whose sword he'd fetched just yesterday. It seemed like ages ago now. "It really does look like an old fortress. I heard the owners are the ones who cleared out a buncha monsters in it a long time ago!"   
  
"Oh yeah," Onyx smiled, "I remember not reading that book when they assigned it."   
  
"S'posedly it belonged to a nasty ol' priestess of Bhaal before the current owners ratted her out!" Imoen exclaimed. "Ali-somethin' or Ameli-somethin' or somethin'-somethin'! Well, I don't know exactly what Bhaalite interior decorating is like - and I hope I never do - but I sure hope they've renovated it since!"   
  
Onyx laughed and hugged his friend. "Don't worry Immy. Bhaal's long gone, his priestesses with him."   
  
It certainly looked more like a fortress than an inn. A high stone wall around a large stone keep. It was imposing in the twilight, and it was certainly easier to picture it being the stronghold of some murderous fanatic than as a warm and welcome lodging for tired travelers.   
  
"Ooh!" Imoen pointed suddenly, noticing a glint the sunset made at something in the soil by the base of a fir tree. She dashed from Onyx's side, nipped at the dirt with two fingers, careful not to damage the poison ivy that grew around the tree's base. She excitedly held aloft a shiny ring bearing a red gem. "Wow, this is pretty! It'd look pretty on me..."   
  
"Wait!" Onyx shouted. "Don't!"   
  
"Aww," Imoen sighed, "But I'm so curious." She peered down at the ring. "It looks so...precious."   
  
"It might be cursed!" Onyx was at her side, but he never would have considered restraining her, and had it been suggested, would have abhored the idea. As it was, he merely stared at her and hoped she wouldn't put the ring on.   
  
"Aww, that's what you said about the ogre's belts."   
  
"You never know," Onyx shrugged, "Remember that story Gorion told us about the evil lord who made a ring that would enslave anyone who wore it with delusions of power?"   
  
"That's silly!" Imoen protested, pouting, and looking at the ring in her hand.   
  
"Well, there are different curses," Onyx sighed. "Don't worry Im, we'll find someone who can identify it. And you can wear it then, I promise."   
  
"Aww," Imoen sighed, but slipped the ring into a pocket.   
  
The pair passed through the open, castle-like porticullis and front gates of the wall around the inn, walking through the courtyard and toward the outdoor stone stairway leading to the doors into the inn.   
  
Just as they reached the steps, a gray-robed man came bounding down. He had blonde hair and a faux-friendly smile, and the nature of the robe he wore made it easy for Onyx and Imoen to guess his profession as magecraft. Identifying mages was _one_ of the few things growing up in Candlekeep would give you ample personal experience at, even if by and large that citadel of learning was the best place for book-learning, and the worst for _real_ learning.   
  
"Hi there," the man hissed with terribly feigned casualness, "I've not seen you before today. What brings you to the Friendly Arm Inn?"   
  
Onyx sensed the evil aura about the man, and answered with the great care a less naive traveler always would. "I suppose inns, by nature, might attract new faces from time to time. We're just weary young travelers, you know. And what's your name, good sir?"   
  
"Tarnesh, if it please you," the man spoke his name with an egotistical flair. "So you wouldn't be here to...met someone, would you?...Ah, I see in your face that you are. Your name wouldn't be Onyx, would it?"   
  
"I'm afraid not," Onyx lied and shrugged, cursing himself for anything his face might have given, but wondering if the man was bluffing. "Name's Locksley. Sir Robin Locksley."   
  
"And I'm Maid Marian," Imoen grinned and batted her eyelashes.   
  
The mage nodded, obviously not convinced, and moved his hands in a strange manner. "Well, seeing as how you fit the description of one Onyx, I beg to differ. I think it's safe to assume you're the one I seek. Don't move, I have something for you."   
  
His serpentine voice continued in tongues, and Onyx judged he didn't quite have time to draw and connect with his sword before whatever spell this mage was obviously conjuring was finished.   
  
So, he just punched Tarnesh in his cruel face. Hard.   
  
This shattered the man's nose, and his concentration to boot.   
  
The spell was disrupted on the threshold of completion, however, and four imperfect, flickering mirror images of Tarnesh sprung out from his sides.   
  
And each of them, like the original, then collapsed to the ground, its face splattered in real or illusionary blood, and a sharp cracking sounds echoing as the middle one's head hit the unforgiving stone steps; and each lay still.   
  
"If that happened to me," Onyx glanced down at the fresh corpse and its four duplicates, "I'd be beside myself too."   
  
A giggle escaped through Imoen's fright, "Now you sound like Robin Locksley!" Then she inhaled sharply, with another thought.   
  
Onyx blinked, and shivered, and felt rather awkward at the macabre jest. Robin Locksley always had a fitting quip when he finished a foe, but...in the flesh, it now seemed inappropriate, and he felt an odd twinge of guilt. "I'm sorry," he whispered to whichever of the bodies was real, and knelt before them.   
  
"Onde jamais esta alma agora vai, pode-o viagem a Elysium."   
  
_Wherever your soul now goes, may it journey to Elysium._   
  
"You okay Ony?" Imoen looked up at her friend caringly as he rose. He nodded and smiled, and she smiled back.   
  
Imoen rifled through Tarnesh's robe. "Hey, some money and scrolls! Neat-o! Hey, a letter, what's this?" She unfurled it and showed it to Onyx for both of them to read. "Oh no, Onyx! It's a bounty on your and Jade's heads! For 200 gold apiece! But why....you've never done anything wrong to anyone...I don't understand..."   
  
"If Jade sees one of these - which I hope she doesn't", Onyx muttered under his breath, "She'll complain it's _only_ 200."   
  
"Neither do I, Immy," he answered his friend aloud with a long face and put an arm around her, the words he was about to say already paining him. "Immy, I can only assume this sort of thing is going to keep happening. Perhaps you shouldn't be with me. You'll be safer away from me...as much as I like having you with me, I hate to put you in danger like this," he looked at her with calm, but sad, compassion.   
  
Imoen's eye softened, happy for his concern, but her mouth remained firm. "I'd never!" She defiantly put her hands on her hips and pouted up at her friend. "I'm not gonna let something happen to you. We're in this til the end! Dontcha remember the pact we made?" She held up her right hand, palm-out, showing him the faint scar on it. Onyx looked down at his own, matching scar on his right hand. "Blood brother and sister! Til the end!"   
  
_The wind blew high on the oceanside cliffs outside the walls of Candlekeep. __  
  
"You're my best friend, Ony," the auburn-haired girl hugged the brunette boy who stood heads taller than her.   
  
"Well, you're my best friend, Immy!" he hugged her back.   
  
"You're not just my friend, Ony, you're like my brother," she buried her head in his chest.   
  
"Well that'd make you my sister, Im," he kissed the top of her head.   
  
She drew a small knife out of a pocket, and without warning, made a slit across her right palm. Onyx was shocked for only the briefest of moments, and let her take his hand, uncurl the fingers, and do the same. She smiled at the way he didn't budge with the pain. So did he. He thought it was important to be strong for his friends, like her. In case he really had to be someday.   
  
They pressed their hands tight together, the wounds perfectly overlapped, blood smearing over their hands, dripping down, and over each other's. Blood brother and sister._   
  
"Very well," Onyx couldn't help but smile, "And I won't let something happen to you."   
  
"Besides," Imoen grinned at him, almost tearing, "Meanies like this or no, I feel safer with you than anywhere else." They hugged.   
  
"Let's hope," Onyx managed a grin as he kissed Imoen's forehead, "We don't meet any bumbling assassins that attack us _without_ announcing it first."   
  
The guards, having seen Tarnesh as the obvious aggressor and nearly getting there in time to help - but not quite doing so, as guards somehow never do - kindly let Onyx and Imoen go on with words assuring them the Arm was _usually_ a safe place.   
  
The two walked through the large doors atop the stairs into the Inn proper. Their first impressions were extremely positive. It was warm and well-lit, and quite clean, and had a pleasant hum of chattier. Not too crowded and bawdy, not too deserted and creepy.   
  
"I'm almost disappointed," Imoen giggled, "Inns in the stories are full of drunken brawls and shadowy charcters!"   
  
_Don't speak too soon,_ Onyx thought while nodding, _Would you prefer to meet another Tarnesh right now?_ He looked around warily for more potential bounty hunters. Eyes appraised them, but that was to be expected, and no one seemed to be approaching.   
  
As they stepped through the room, cautious but trying to appear casual, the hum of the conversation became far less pleasant as they listened more carefully. The snatches they overheard were dominated by worries related to the iron shortage - rising prices, faltering equipment, iron-stealing bandits, even rumors of southern invasion from Amn. _Figures_, Onyx thought, _I first go out into the world during an economic crisis, a crime wave, and maybe a war._   
  
Onyx's face grew long with all this worried talk. Only a few days ago, the prospect of venturing out into the world someday had excited him so. It was all different now. His father was dead. People were hunting him. He was separated from his sister, and his friends back home. And the world seemed grim, with all this talk. Was it always so grim?   
  
Then something else occurred to him. It was grim at the beginnings of the stories. That was when there were great deeds to be done.   
  
_Sir Robin Locksley wouldn't stay at home when the days were dark. He would travel the roads when they were most dangerous._   
  
_Maybe I had to leave Candlekeep for a purpose. Maybe I'm supposed to do something about this iron problem. Maybe Immy and I will find this Jaheira and Khalid and then meet up with Jade and that wacky wizard and hobbit, and work together. I'm sorry Gorion had to die, but he'd want something good to come out of it._   
  
_Or maybe I'm being utterly narcissistic, and maybe I'll be annihilatd by the next parlor-mage who fancies himself an assassin._   
  
_And get my best friend horribly killed along side me._   
  
Imoen, safe for the moment, spotted a pair of half-elves approaching, and pointed them out to her friend.   
  
Onyx grew tense and lowered a hand to his sword. _Let's see... Tarnesh, lone ogre, Montaron & Xzar, big armored guy with ogre thugs, and two bumbling thugs. Yep, the last five groups that have approached me have all been murderers or psychos. Let's roll the dice again, shall we?_   
  
"Good day, friend!" one of them, a leather-clad woman with a quarterstaff, called out as they approached. She had a funny accent, as if she were exhaling too forcefully as she spoke. And something about the way she carried herself and her staff, was definitely forceful, and her sea-green eyes studied him like a mother her son. Her bearing added nearly a head to her physical height; and she was already quite tall for a half-elven woman, and her build, well contoured by leathers was both lithe and muscular. Onyx also noticed she was undeniably attractive - braided blondish-brunette hair, smooth and elegant face, shapely and athletic body, and confident posture. The sort of reflexive thought a man can't help, but can quickly push aside, which he did.   
  
The other one was a male half-elf, who was decked out much like Onyx - in splint mail, with a sword at his hip, and a shield and bow over his back. He smiled timidly at them, while glancing nervously to the woman beside him, as if getting silent permission to grin. Despite the hunted-animal eyes, Onyx could recognize the movements of a man who knew something of martial pursuits. And he looked quite kind, with a gentle, if slightly hapless, grin. He looked scarcely different from a human, if a rather lean and light-footed one. He walked softly, but there is an adage about that.   
  
"You are the son of Gorion, are you not?" the woman addressed Onyx. It was more a statement than a question. Perhaps even an order. "I couldn't help but recognize you from his letters, for he writes of you often. Forgive my manners; I am Jaheira, and this is Khalid, my husband," she gestured with compassion but slight dismissiveness to the half-elven man, and offered no hand in greeting. She then turned to Imoen. "You, girl, do not resemble his other ward."   
  
Imoen felt vaguely insulted, her mind's eye flicking over her more physically developed friend Jade. Over their first years together, best friends, two peas in a pod, auburn and scarlet hair flying as they played pranks on mean teachers like Ulraunt and mean boys like Abdullard.   
  
Their opinions on X had diverged, and when he had gone, so had she. Jade outgrew her, angrier and serious, pushing her body into an athletic machine, not out of hearty sportsmanship like Ony, but out of grim determination for Imoen knew not what. She outpaced her at archery practice, graduating to a longbow while Imoen could barely bend a short. She outpaced her in natural growth, blossoming into a young woman while Imoen remained a girl. It was not in her nature to envy, though she thought upon it now; but as she had grown keen of mind but remained a child at heart, while the more jaded Jade grew precociously serious and cynical, and as they grew, they grew apart.   
  
Imoen exchanged glances with Onyx, regarding the half-elves. They were half-expecting more assassins.   
  
Onyx had sensed no evil intent in them, but that, he knew, was sadly no foolproof guarantee. Could it yet be a trick? Could these be assassins who knew about his rendezvous with 'Jahiera' and 'Khalid?' Maybe the real Jaheira and Khalid were already dead in a room upstairs and these were assassin imposters?   
  
"Huh?" Onyx asked the half-elves blankly. He wasn't much an actor, but he was feeling so much genuine confusion these days that particular this sort of 'fake' response came naturally. "Gorion? Who?"   
  
The half-elven woman sighed, and looked up at the youth. "Gorion gave a detailed physical description, and said you slew 9 kobolds last summer, 7 the summer before, and two when you were fourteen. Happy now?"   
  
They were, but for altogether different reasons Onyx and Imoen exchanged uneasy glances, recognizing the same memory in each other's eyes.   
  
_Chasing each other energetically through a hilly field, Candlekeep and the Sea of Swords both in view. The sea winds were blowing in high and rustling the grass and Imoen's wild hair, and the sky was overcast, but the sun lit the sky through it and was cheery despite the gray. __  
  
Imoen pointed and screamed as a pair of small kobolds came around a bush. Onyx yelled and threw a large rock at one but missed. Imoen threw a smaller rock and managed to bean one across the forehead, momentarily stunning it, but the other one came charging with a crude short sword. Onyx picked a thick stick off the ground and stepped in front of Imoen, parrying the kobold's first clumsy swipe and then swatting the kobold. His stick broke on his next parry and the sword grazed and bloodied his forearm. He lunged into the kobold, getting too close for its sword, and strangled it angrily while Imoen kept throwing rocks at the other one. Screaming with rage in a boy's voice, Onyx broke his foe's neck and picked up the short sword as it fell to the ground. He raised it high and charged the second kobold angrily, but the creature turned and ran with a squeak. The boy caught up to it and swung the sword into the kobold's back. It fell to the ground paralyzed and Imoen watched in fright as Onyx continued to swing at it.   
  
"Dontcha ever attack people!" Onyx cried in angry tears as he mercilessly hacked apart the helpless kobold. "Dontcha ever attack my friend Immy!" He felt the righteous determination in his blood turn to pure rage.   
  
As Imoen continued to watch, she felt her initial shock and digust turn to curiosity and studied her friend's slices and shouts as well as the mutilated body of the kobold. "It's dead..." she sighed, "death is...." _  
  
She jerked her gaze away, and Onyx too looked back to Jaheira. "Fair enough," he told the woman heartily, but in a low voice not meant for the room's other patrons, "I will trust you as his friends. Please forgive my paranoia, I..."   
  
"Yes," Jaheira cut him off bluntly, "I know of it all, child."   
  
_Child?_ Onyx arched an eyebrow, looking down at the woman who stood more than a head shorter than he, but let it roll off. Well, she did look older, like a human in her early 30s - no, make that late 20s - and he knew about half-elven lifespans.   
  
"G-good to know you," Khalid smiled. "I thought your m-manner looked familiar child, it reminded me of Gorion." Onyx nodded in thanks.   
  
"Yes," Jaheira smirked. "Though it is almost a slight on him, I see it too." Onyx rolled his eyes, letting it roll off, and noticed her looking up and down him, wrly trying to contain a glowing smile within a smug smirk.   
  
"Jaheira! M-mind your m-manners!" Khalid gasped at her thinly veiled insult.   
  
"We are good friends of your adopted father," Jaheira continued, now looking at Imoen and quickly dismissing her again with her eyes. "He is not with you? Nor is his other charge, Jade? I must assume the worst; he would not permit his children to wander without accompaniment."   
  
"If...if he has passed, we share your loss," Khalid head-bowed politely.   
  
"Thank you, good Khalid," Onyx nodded. "Sadly, he has, upon the road just last night. Jade is fine, but decided to...take a different path than I."   
  
"Gorion always thought you two would soon after the chance arose," Jaheira nodded. "He said that he often worried for your safety, even at the expense of his own. He also wished that Khalid and I would become your guardians, if he should ever meet an untimely end. However, you are much older now," she pointedly looked at Onyx again, "And the choice of your companions should be your own."   
  
"We could t-travel with you until you get settled; help you find your l-lot in life," Khalid offered, smiling helpfully. Onyx smiled back and nodded with genuine appreciation for his concern and offer.   
  
Jaheira continued, cutting off her husband, "It would be a fitting last service to Gorion, though we should first go to Nashkel. Khalid and I...look into local concerns, and there are rumors of strange things happening at the mine. No doubt you have heard of the iron shortage? You would do well to help us. It affects everyone, including you. We are to meet the mayor of the town, Berron Ghastkill."   
  
Imoen and Onyx exchanged arched eyebrows and Onyx spoke, his face lighting visibly. "Well met, new friends," he shook Khalid's hand, and then kissed Jaheira's, drawing from the woman and indignant scoff, a restrained smile covered by a scoff and an accentuated eye-roll. _Hmm...maybe Gorion raised me a little too formally for the real world. Jade always thought so._ "We too wish to look into these concerns. Actually, Jade, along with two others we met on the road - one of them a childhood friend, actually - has already headed south to this same mayor of Nashkel. These other two seemed also eager to look into the iron shortage, though their motives hardly seemed altruistic. And I detected the aura of evil upon them."   
  
Khalid raised his eyebrows, nodding, but Jaheira mock-spat. "Be not so quick to judge, squireling," she dismissed him, "You've much to learn about the world."   
  
"Tell me, Jaheira," Onyx smiled, "Why is it that professed cynics are so reluctant to trust anyone for any reason, but will scoff and take offense when a paladin mistrusts someone for a more concrete, if far-from-perfect reason?"   
  
Jaheira scowled at him, and said nothing. Khalid seemed to nod, considering it. "S-shall we stay here the night, or press on?" Khalid asked the other three after a moment, changing the sore subject.   
  
"I, for one, have had my share of this Inn," Jaheira began, looking around at it boredly, "But you two have had a long and tragic trip since fleeing Candlekeep - you look as if you last slept in a bush, Onyx - and I'd certainly understand if you're eager to rest."   
  
Onyx glanced at Imoen, who seemed as plucky as always. "Actually," he began, "We've both a good deal of stamina left, I believe..." He then looked at Imoen, who nodded pluckily, but at a same time, a yawn escaped her little lips.   
  
"...On the other hand," Onyx chuckled and backtracked, "Immy and I lack infravision," he smiled knowingly at his new half-elven companions, and folded his hands over his chest. "And we'd have to rest sooner or later. Night has fallen, and is more dangerous. Let us rest, and set out at dawn."   
  
"Very well," Jaheira acquiesced.   
  
Onyx smiled inwardly, thanking Gorion for the exact nature of the instructions he seemed to have given her, and continued. "I overheard many a complaint about hobgoblins just north of the Inn as we went through the courtyard and this room. Perhaps a little...tour of the grounds...is in order in the morning?"   
  
Jaheira put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at him. "You seem almost too eager, squire Onyx."   
  
"I am no one's squire," he retorted to her coolly.   
  
"Very well," Jaheira smirked. "But don't be too eager to die. I've lost count of the number of fresh-faced newbie warriors I've known to gleefully walk to their deaths on their first day out of the barracks."   
  
"I've known a few myself," Onyx smirked, "And I appreciate the wisdom of your words. Imoen and I are decent archers, and tomorrow we will brave the wilds with caution. I am not the sort of silly paladin who will duel an ogre hand-to-hand when he might pump him full of arrows at 100 paces."   
  
"Perhpas you'll live a _few_ days then," Jaheira grinned, visibly betraying more approval than she wanted to, "But I've no wish to fulfill my promise to Gorion by reuniting you with him."   
  
"If you still doubt us," Onyx grinned cockily, "Would you like to watch Immy and I sell of the glut of leather armor and shortswords he acquired from hobgoblin would-be bandits on our way to the Arm?"   
  
Khalid burst out into laughter, and suddenly ceased when Jaheira glared at him.   
  
"As long as we stick ta-gether, I'm sure we'll be okay!" Imoen smiled as Onyx took her hand and they headed toward the bar and emptied a pile of shortswords and leathers out on it, followed by two less-enthusiastic half-elves.   
  
  
------------------   
  
  
Later that night, Khalid and Jaheira had retired to a room, and Onyx and Imoen to the one next to it. Imoen, unable to sleep with the excitement of her very first night outside Candlekeep, had quietly slipped out after her friend had drifted off, and thus been rendered unable to admonish her against the danger. She was quietly skipping up and down the halls of the huge inn with wide-eyed excitement.   
  
"Hey, kiddo," called the old gnomish woman who just now had managed to catch Imoen's attention, "I saw ya with those adventurers earlier. Name's Landrin."   
  
"Yep yep!" Imoen smiled. "We're gonna be heroes!" She bounded up and down happily.   
  
"I tell ya what then," Landrin smiled materanlly, "I've got a spider infestation in the celler of my home; it's west of the Jovial Juggler down in Beregost. Bentley said I could stay here until the buggers move on, but I hate to impose."   
  
"Ooh spiders," Imoen gritted her teeth, "I hate 'em too! Want us to kill 'em?"   
  
"Why thank you, child," the gnome nodded, for of course this had been her impending question, and began to reach into her pockets, "Take these poison antidotes for the job, and I tell ya what - I've give you guys 120 goldpence for doing the job. Bring back my ol' bottle of wine and my dear husband's old boots too, and I'll throw in somethin' extra."   
  
"Woohoo!" Imoen grinned, and happily took a half dozen greenish vials. "Yes ma'am!"   
  
She skipped down the hall, so excited she bumped into someone just as he was strolling out the door of his room, and if she hadn't been such an agile girl she would have surely lost her balance and broken her new potions.   
  
"Er, sorry mister," Imoen grinned and looked up at the nobleman, whom she decided was wearing by far the most ridiculous and silly-looking outfit she had ever seen. It was a strange aqua shade, with poofy leggings and a ridiculous, mushroom-like hat with a huge peacock feather. Come to think of it, _he_ looked like a peacock.   
  
"Watch it you-" the man declared angrily, then hesistated and looked down at her. "You...ah! the scullery maid! About time you showed!" While Imoen scratched her head confusedly, deciding this guy was a meanie, he darted in and out of his room, carrying a pile of clothes no less gaudy than those on his back. "Here!" he declared with a pompous, commanding air. "I need these tunics cleaned and pressed by this eve, and be EXTRA careful with the golden pantaloons!"   
  
_Golden pantaloons?_ Imoen thought. _How ridiculous can you..._   
  
"...It took 15 women and a small boy from Calimshan 12 days and 4 nights to weave them, so careful on the seams! Well?" he shoved the clothes in her face, "Get along!"   
  
_What the?_ Imoen wondered, very angry with this man. _The maids here must dress in purple or somethin'!_ She looked down at her leathers, and was just about to explain her non-maid status, then thought, _It took all those people so long just to make such a STUPID pair of pants? Look at them? Eww! Those poor people. I bet they got treated mean when they were makin' em too. Like this man is mean!_   
  
She was about to tell him off, and explain his mistake, in less than polite terms. But then, all at once, the anger vanished from her face, and she smiled, quite content.   
  
"Sir, yes sir!" She jumped up and down, and yanked the clothing out of his hands in a snap, smiling like a court page given an errand. "Pantaloon pressed and ready by tonight, or breakfast is free, sir!" She grinned at him nicely, and he gave her a weird smile and wink back. _Eww...maybe I shoulnd't act tooooooo nice..._   
  
"Done and done!" the nobleman snorted. "Now, be on your way!" She turned around to dash off, her face melting from perkiness to disgust as it turned away from his, but just then he shouted, "Wait a moment!" Imoen spun around, her face immediately resuming airheaded perkiness, and he tossed a few coins on top of the bundle she held. "Put in a pleat that would make daddy proud - if you know what I mean. Now get!'   
  
_Ewww...._ Imoen thougth as she dashed off. _Ooh, this guy deserves it good!_   
  
Early the next morning, the nobleman would have his gaudy tunics delivered by the girl, cleaned and pressed. And rubbed with crushed poison ivy.   
  
The pantaloons, on a whim, she kept.


	9. The Essence Sire Strikes Back

Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon.   
  
- Boromir   
  
  
  
**9. The Essence Sire Strikes Back **  
  
As their eyelids grew heavy, Onyx in a cozy room at the Friendly Arm Inn, Jade in the above-ground guest bedroom of Kagain's Beregost residence, their thoughts were upon the same shared memory.   
  
_Gorion, the warm, bearded sage, sat in a loose brown cloak, his young wards sitting cross-legged on the thick carpet near his desk, peering up at him with eager children's eyes.   
  
"The Weave is what gives a mage his power," the sage explained. "It's a magical field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the multiverse together."   
  
"Do not be too ready to strike down another, whatever your differences or reasons, be they good or evil; the Weave binds us together as in a circle, and what we send forth returns."   
  
Their father spoke on, of optimism and caution, reason and intuition, justice and compassion, and the boy and the girl paid steadfast attention... _  
  
...But in the present world, drifted off to sleep.   
  
_Onyx and Jade found themselves, and each other, outside the familiar stone walls of Candlekeep. Their former home loomed before them, but the gate was closed and barred. They looked up at one of the towers, and could see candles burning out of the windows of their old adjacent windows, like two eyes peering down at them. Two golden glowing eyes, like those of the armored man.   
  
Onyx smiled with fond memories of home, Jade felt mixed feelings within herself. Both were frightened and surprised when the candles went out, and the bricks grew together, like wounds healing at an unnatural pace, closing over the windows, and now the walls stood over them, utterly solid, almost smug, conspiring to keep them away. Faint vibrations, almost like deep laughter, seemed to resonate from the rigid stones.   
  
A shaft of bright light descended between them and the closed gate, and in it stood Gorion, but the sight was not comforting, for he was withered and dead in the dream, as in life. "You cannot go back, my children," he cried to them, "You must go on!"   
  
The ghostly sage them gestured to the wilderness, and the youths looked that way, into the black woods, as if it should be inviting, but rather it looked quite forboding, although Jade and also Onyx felt some curiosity. They peered through it, looking for paths, and gradually one opened before them, clear and inviting, and almost itself seemed to pull at them, promising to lead them away from the lives they led, for the best. Both youths found this greeting suspicious, but as Gorion faded away and nothing was left for them behind, they found themselves half-charging, and half pushed by some unseen force, down the path, filled with both curiosity and fear.   
  
And then, the one path diverged to two, each equally clear and inviting, yet therefore suspect. Onyx and Jade exchanged glances, for he slightly favored one of the paths, as did she, and they saw in each others' eyes these were not the same.   
  
And then they were swept onward, down different paths, stealing glances back at each other, but then turned each away to look ahead, for their paths had diverged.   
  
Whispers followed them as they ran away. The voice was vengeful and sinister, and it felt familiar, yet he knew they had never heard it.   
  
"You will learn..."   
  
As the voice spoke, they saw the death of Gorion over and over again, seared into their minds in the dream as it was in life.   
  
"You will learn..."   
  
Onyx didn't look back.   
  
Jade got used to it. _  
  
-------   
  
_Onyx kept running and running, lost in throught, and when he regained awareness of himself and his surroundings, found himself standing in a strange metallic room, the light faint and unnatural, steam rising from the floor. From across the room, a dark shape, faint but large, emerged, and strode forward into view. A towering figure in dark armor, with glowing eyes. It drew forth a large sword, glowing red with malice, and Onyx looked down to see a blue-glowing holy avenger in his own hand.   
  
The armored figure, breathing heavily, laughed. "The essence is with you, young Onyx. But you are hardly a knight yet."   
  
Both warriors moved forward, their magical swords bright, and crossed blades. Onyx found himself filled with great conviction, and his killer instincts were acute as they never had been before. But his opponent was calm, skilled, parrying each blow, but not quite able to land a counterstrike.   
  
The figure bellowed, both angered and amused. Perhaps proud. "Impressive...most impressive."   
  
The dark warrior redoubled his efforts, and Onyx felt an enchanted tingle about him, a mesmeric aura of pure fear, as he had felt and so easily given in to only the night before, gripped in mindless panic, leaving Gorion to die. Now, this time, as he continued to strike and parry, his instincts now in full control, his conscious mind was occupied maintaining sheer force of will against the oppressive curtain of fear that descended upon it. His mind repeated to itself the vow he had made, while his arms wielded his holy avenger with a grace he had no right to possess, and this thoughts slid to the edge of fear, but not over.   
  
"I see Gorion has taught you well," the golden-eyed figure bellowed.   
  
The flood of fear, swirling across all corners of his thoughts, grew only more torrential, and he sweated with the effort of strongholding his mind against it. His vow, his honor, were just enough to keep it at bay, and his instincts took all hold of his body, and had him crouch and jump higher than any mortal man has a right to, clear over his nemesis's head, landing on his other side and nearly cleaving him with the holy avenger, but barely blocked by the dull red blade.   
  
"You are beaten," The figure growled, and now easily drove back Onyx, who struggled to fight as he held himself against both anger and fear, now knowing he could not use one against the other, and what was left of him seemed ill a match for both. "It is useless to resist. Don't let yourself be destroyed as Gorion was."   
  
The armored man drove him back, through an archway in the room, and out onto a steel bridge that stretched over nothingness; a vast column of air in some great hollow stone tower, the faraway walls lined with stone statues of all manner of humanoid. The golden-eyed monster drove Onyx further and further back along the bridge, toward where it terminated in the very center of the tower, which stretched up and down further than the eyes could see.   
  
"There is no escape," the armored figure's voice echoed across the void. "Don't make me destroy you. You do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover you power. Join me. Give in to me."   
  
"Never!" Onyx cried, his holy avenger flashing, but his opponent bellowed, sidestepped his swing, and cleft through the young paladin's right forearm. Onyx cried as his right hand and the sword it gripped went flying into the void, and he lurched back, his maimed arm tucked under his left shoulder, beaten, his balance and control gone. He crumpled at the edge end of the bridge, and slipped off it, catching the edge with his left hand.   
  
"If you only knew the power of the essence," the figure laughed, striding slowly and purposefully to the edge where Onyx hung by one hand, looking down. "Onyx. You can destroy Cyric. He has forseen this. It is your destiny. Join me, and we shall rule the multiverse together as father and son."   
  
"No!" Onyx cried, dangling, looking up at the figure desperately. "You killed my father!"   
  
The armored man laughed, peering down with his golden eyes, upon the face within his grotesque helmet. And Onyx, studying the face for the first time, realized this was not the same man who had slain Gorion. Similar, but fitting more comfortably in his ghastly armor, his bearing more regal. Older.   
  
This figure bellowed, and pointed one mailed finger down toward the young man. "No, Onyx...."   
  
"....I **AM **YOUR FATHER!"   
  
"Nooooooooooo!!!" Onyx cried, and lost his grip, and fell into the void.   
  
He fell and fell, the many statues ringing the walls of the stone tower racing past him, and they grew closer as he fell, a cone, then a tube, and at last they were all around him, and he fell past the last ones, and the bottom of the tower, which hung over true nothingness.   
  
His remaining hand gripped a spire that jutted from the underside of the floating tower, and he hung there, nearly unconscious, whispering, "Gorion....Lathander...Jondalar...." and then, as his mind slid into blackness, he knew none could help him here. Though only his heart yet knew why, there was one and only one he could call too now.   
  
"Imoen! Hear me! Imoen!" _  
  
Onyx stirred uncomfortably in his sleep, mumbling, "Imoen...hear me....Imoen..." Imoen lay fast asleep herself, one arm slung over him, and his wrapped around her, her head resting on his chest.   
  
_Imoen was skipping through a field of grass and pink flowers. The sunshine smiled at her, and squirrels and rabbits scurried about, but stopped to look at her in greeting. Then, with a squeal of delight, she saw a pure white unicorn galloping over the field. It slowed to a trot as it came closer, and stopped before her, letting her pet it on the muzzle.   
  
"Ooo," Imoen's eyes were wide with excitement. "My very own unicorn!" The equestrian whinnied happily. "Amalthea? What a pretty name!" Imoen felt both as if she had chosen and known the unicorn's name, that confluence of good dreams. "Why yes, I would love to go for a ride!"   
  
Amalthea knelt, and Imoen happily bounced up on her back, and then broke into a canter that was utterly smooth, and Imoen laughed with glee, feeling as if she were riding the wind itself over the endless sea of pink flowers.   
  
"Imoen! Hear me! Imoen!"   
  
Imoen looked up at the sky. "Onyx?" She looked around. "Where are you?" She looked down at Amalthea, who gave a worried whinny. "It's Ony! He's in trouble!"   
  
Imoen somehow knew that Amalthea understood, and the unicorn galloped forward, then leapt off the ground, sprouting angelic white wings, and flew higher and higher, the field disappearing beneath them. Imoen gasped with fright and clung to Amalthea's neck as the sky grew dark and everything beneath became a swirling void. She looked forward, and saw a great stone tower hovering over it, and as they grew closer, could see a single spire protruding down from its base, and a nearly lifeless figure clutching it with one hand.   
  
"Onyx!" Imoen cried as her friend dropped from the spire, and as if reading her thoughts, Amalthea swooped down in a great arc, and the young man fell and fell before them, and without one second to spare Amalthea soared across his trajectory, and he landed across her back, nearly in Imoen's lap, barely conscious but reaching up to clutch both of her hands with his left.   
  
"Imoen..." he opened one eye and smiled at her. _  
  
"Onyx..." Imoen cried in her sleep.   
  
"Imoen..." Onyx mumbled, and his left hand reached up to clasp hers.   
  
At once, they both awoke, and sprung up in bed. Onyx clutched his right forearm protectively, then wiggled his fingers, and looked with great relief at his intact hand. "A dream..." he whispered breathily, and exhaled.   
  
"Ooo, I had a weird one myself," Imoen declared sleepily, and looked with concern at her friend. She saw he was okay, the events leading up to their arrival and lodging at the Friendly Arm Inn returned to her, and she sighed with relief.   
  
"Really?" Onyx looked at her, blinking, himself regaining awareness of the real world.   
  
"You first," Imoen smiled.   
  
------   
  
_Jade ran on and on and on, and when she became aware of herself again, found her surroundings foreign. She stood in an ancient ruin, broken white stones beneath her feet, and scattered doric columns and crossbeams of stone jutting up around her. Strangest of all, beyond the ruin was nothingness, no walls or land, only a sky of fire.   
  
She saw a figure approaching from down a ruined roadway lined by broken columns, a woman, as tall and strong as herself, but with a stride that spoke of more confidence and age. She wore a tight green suit that proudly contoured her muscular body, knee-high boots of gold, and gauntlets that made her hands large golden claws, and in one of them she held a long forked spear. She wore a golden circlet, and white feathers stuck out from the back of it, framing her reddish-brown hair.   
  
As if willed by Jade's own defensive instincts, she looked down to see a large hand-and-a-half sword in her right hand, and a shield in her left.   
  
The tall woman stopped, held her spear low in her right hand, and raised her left clawed guantlet. She laughed, a deep, womanly, and supremely confident laugh, and pointed a single finger at Jade. "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little mage too."   
  
Jade snarled and wordlessly strode forward, raising her sword high to cleave this mad woman in two. Her opponent, smirking, took a wide step backwards, flipping her polearm around herself artfully and bracing it thrust forward, catching Jade's sword within the fork. The woman let go with her left hand, and raked her massive metal claws across Jade's face, leaving several deep scratches. The girl winced and drew backwards, angry but afraid.   
  
"All to easy," the woman bellowed, "Perhaps you are not as strong as my lord thought."   
  
Jade snarled, her fear giving way to anger, and pulled her sword over her left shoulder, and swung forward across her own body. The woman flipped her spear to catch with the fork again, but Jade then pushed her shield forward, glanced the fork downward, and brought her blade forward, slashing shallowly over the woman's collar.   
  
"You have controlled your fear," the woman held her mouth in a tight smile, wounded but obviously pleased. "Now release your anger."   
  
Jade lunged as her opponent drew back, beating each of her spear thrusts aside with blade or shield, and making her own attacks, thrusts rather than swings, more difficult to catch, and she did not hit the woman again, but drove her back and back over the stones, past the columns. As they fought, Jade ever advancing, they passed by the last of the columns and the sprawling ruins, and went out onto an aqueduct-like stone bridge that stretched over the fiery void.   
  
The womam now redoubled her efforts, holding her spear in an aggressive stance, across herself like a quarterstaff, knocking edge of sword or shield aside with the shaft, and raked each forked end across Jade's unarmored body several times, drawing blood. Jade's mind faltered, intimidated and angered by the realization that this woman had only been holding back all along.   
  
"Only your hatred can destroy me," the woman stated, her voice echoing from nowhere.   
  
These words angered Jade, but that seemed to be the woman's intent, and desire, and that only angered her further, and she found herself obeying them in her desire to disobey. At last she was consumed only with the thought of running her through, of ending it. The woman's spear came forward, but instead of letting it glance off her shield as it would have, Jade let go of her shield, and it dropped to the stones. The spear pierced air, and the woman faltered forward.   
  
"KAAAIIII!"   
  
Jade screamed as she did not know she could, taking her sword in a two-handed grip, feeling it like an extension of herself and pushing it forward at the unabalanced woman. It buried itself cleanly between her breasts, and Jade did not stop screaming or thrusting with all her might until it was up to the hilt.   
  
The woman only cooed with an air of maternal pride, let go of her spear, and brought her clawed hands up and raked over Jade's face, bloodying it until the girl retreated, letting go of her sword and moving her hands to her face. The bastard sword falling from her chest and the wound healing at a gesture, the woman kicked Jade's exposed stomach with a golden boot with such force that the girl lost all balance, and sunk to her knees, holding her mutilated face.   
  
The woman stood over the girl. Her air was menacing but her voice mothering. "You do not yet realize your importance, my girl. You have only begun to discover you power. Join me and I will complete your training. Gorion never told you of your true mother."   
  
"He told me enough!" Jade cried, seeing blood through her vision as she looked up at the woman, who gave a come-hither gesture with a monstrous claw. "Birthing me my mother died!"   
  
The woman tossed her scarlet-brunette hair back, and laughed throatily. "No, Jade..."   
  
"...I **AM **YOUR MOTHER!"   
  
"Noooooooo!!" Jade screamed like a girl half her age.   
  
The woman reached down, dug her claws into Jade's torso in a cruel mockery of a mother's embrace, and flung her into the fiery void.   
  
The young lady called out to no one. _  
  
Jade tossed and turned in her sleep, her bed drenched in sweat. Nearby, Xzar lay upon a slablike cot, in a mummy's pose of eternal rest, his arms folded over his chest, his body deathly still, his face in a rictus grin.   
  
_Xzar was skipping merrilly through a festering wasteland, jets of flame spurting up from a ground made of piled bones. Razorblade-pelated flowers grew from the banks of a river of blood, and a petrified tree bore 'fruit' of skulls.   
  
The young necromancer grinned with fiendish delight as out of the sky of fire and lightning, swooped a small demonic creature. With a blackish-crimson leathery hide, claws, batwings, a scorpion's tail, and a grotesque horned face, it looked like some pint-sized glabrezu.   
  
Xzar clapped his hands and peered down at the creatue. "Oh, a quasit! How wonderful! Now Monty can tease someone else about their height for a change!"   
  
"Ah, shove it," the little fiend grimaced, and held out its right foreclaw, "Name's Bub. Be'el Z. Bub. Let's cut to the chase - here's my resume."   
  
A human-flesh scroll materalized in the air over its head, and unfurled itself for Xzar to read:   
  
Be'el Z. Bub   
Quasit Extraordinaire   
Skills: Mischief, Sneakery, Mayhem, Fright, Carnage, General Sowing of Chaos & Evil   
Current Employer: Cyric   
Previous Employers: Demogorgon, Bhaal   
Education: Abyssal University, 666th Layer Campus   
  
"That's right," Bub grinned with what was probably pride, but came across more like ravenous hunger for manflesh, "After Boss Demogorgon got locked away by the Helmites - for divine-power-tax evasion of all things! Those hypocritical heavyhanded swine - I went to work for Bhaal, in the weapons department with Cespanar-nar Blinks - oh man, I hated that guy - 'Mesa gonna remind you we needs more gold!' 'Wesa gonna be scrubbin' Bhaal's spiky armor now' 'why yousa looking like you wants to strangle mee?' - anyway, after Cyric's hostile takeover of the Lord of Murder's portfolio, I say if ya can't beat 'em, join 'em, so I go work for the Prince of Lies sowing misinformation around the other Planes. Hooboy, I got this one gig recently where I was postmarking a dead horse's head from the Council of Six and leaving it in Duke Eltan's bed, and postmarking the other six chunks of it from Duke Eltan and leaving them under the sheets of the Council of Six, and boy has that ever caused a misunderstanding..."   
  
"Very nice," Xzar cooed, "But the lollipop dukes will want to know what..."   
  
The young necromancer was cut off by a young woman's shriek resonating across the horrific landscape.   
  
Bub cried, "Danger, Xzar of Candlekeep, Danger!"   
  
The quasit's leathery wings flapped and it flew up and over Xzar's head, gripped his shoulders and belt with its claws, and lifted the young man into the air. "Up, up, and away!"   
  
"Jade!" Xzar screamed, recognizing the crying voice. "It's her!" His mind raced, and he somehow knew, as one does in dreams, what do to. "Bub! Target humanoid sonic vocal resonance coordinates pronto!'   
  
"Captain!" Bub rasped as they flew higher above the wasteland, "I detect signature pattern from the delta-quadrant of the Astral Plane. Recommend we set course at warp seven or nine."   
  
"Make it so, number Z!" Xzar pushed his fists forward in a flying pose, and the quasit's wings flattened out, and they zoomed forward, everything around them stretching into lines of light, and when they slowed down, there was naught but a fiery void about them, save for a floating stone structure far above. Jade's voice came from above, much louder, and growing only more so.   
  
Xzar was pointing upwards, but then the air around them started to waver, and Bub hissed, "Captain! Something's decloaking off the starboard bow!"   
  
The wavering shapes materialized into fluffy white things with large ears stretched out like wings.   
  
"Oh no!!" Xzar shrieked. "Rabbits of Prey!"   
  
"Recommend defensive manuevers," Bub cried as six flying hares closed in.   
  
"Raise shields!" Xzar cried and flailed, but his voice and arms grew calm, fluid, in the gestures and syllables for Shield.   
  
"Missiles incoming!" Bub alerted, as the Rabbits of Prey fired Magic Missiles from their beady red eyes, but they fizzled against the shield. "Return fire!"   
  
Xzar cast a pair of magic missiles from open palms, and they vaporized two engaging bunnies on impact. His next blast crossed paths with the harmless missiles of another pair and took them out.   
  
"Missiles depleted!" Bub advised as the last two rabbits bore down, now baring their overgrown teeth.   
  
"Evasive manuevers!" Xzar cried, and Bub swooped out of the way, the rabbits chomping air. The young necromancer flipped two throwing daggers from his belt into his thumbs-and-forefingers. "Setting daggers to KILL!" He tossed one dagger after the other, striking each rabbit in turn, and the vanquished foes vanished.   
  
"Set intercept course!" Xzar pointed upwards to where Jade, now visible, fell through the void. "To boldly go where no necromancer has gone before!" Bub complied, and flapped his batwings. They bore down upon the female form as it plummeted, and Bub swooped down in anticipation of her trajectory. As they closed, Xzar reached out, curled both forearms upwards, and caught her in a picture finish. _  
  
Xzar's forearms curled upwards from his sides on the cot. His sleeping face smiled, not wildly or manically, but with restraint and warmth, and he purred.   
  
Nearby, Jade stopped tossing, and hugged her pillow. Her eyes popped open, and she clasped her hands over her face, and for a moment the thick sweat was in her mind blood. But as she moved her fingers over her smooth features, and her eyes peered about the dark room, she regained awareness of the waking world. She sighed, and when Xzar's eyes popped open a moment later and he rose in the straight-backed manner of a vampire from its coffin, they shared a glance through the darkness, each wordlessly wondering the same thing.   
  
To the north, Onyx and Imoen finished sharing their accounts, each not quite sure what to make of their own or the other's.   
  
Imoen rubbed her eyes and yawned. As the first ray of sunlight zinged across the room, she felt a full confidence in her heart of what she had told her friend. They were in this, together, til' the end, come what may.   
  
Onyx blinked, his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, rubbing his scalp through his short hair. He felt flushed with courage, as if his heart pumped it, and as he looked down over his best friend, he knew he would never run in fright from her defense, come what may.   
  
But when his thoughts turned to more mundane concerns and he thought back to the night before, he had a vauge recollection of some reminiscing of his father Gorion, but somehow the memories of exactly what he couldn't find. Saying something? He couldn't remember the words or hear the voice. He drew a blank. As did his sister to the south. Filling the void, and the voice, was the one from their shared dream.   
  
_YOU WILL LEARN...... _  
  
------   
  
" _All _of them?" Jade, now dressed and up, yelled in disbelief, her voice echoing around the outer room of Kagain's residence.   
  
"You bet yer hide!" Montaron laughed smugly. "While ye was sleepin' like a babe, I did a bit of burglarin'."   
  
"A _bit _?" Jade asked skeptically, as she stared at the enormous pile of gold, gems, jewelry, weapons, potions, and other filched goods that Montaron had dumped onto the table. The morning sunlight shining through the window glinted off it, and made it look especially covet-worthy. "You just said you burgled _every house or shop in town! _"   
  
Montaron smiled greasily. "Ye disapprove, Jadey-lass? You be soundin' like ye say that paladin-brother o' yours speaks. Ye wants I should return it to the rightly owners? Forget it!"   
  
"No, no," Jade laughed, as she stared at the pile of wealth. "I'm just shocked by the...volume of thievery you accomplished. Pleasantly surprised. _Very _pleasantly surprised." From where she sat beside the table, she looked down at him. " _Every _house in Nashkel?"   
  
"Every house, shop, barn, ye name it!" Montaron chuckled. "And as a special present for ye..." Montaron reached for the table and hefted up a bastard sword that was far longer than longer than he was tall, and handed it to Jade. "It be enchanted."   
  
"Very nice," Jade smiled covetously as she gripped the golden handle of the magically shimmering sword. She stood, and waved it around expertly as if she were already intimately familiar with that particular blade. She instinctively reached for her shield, propped against the table, but then some other instinct had her put the second hand on the handle. She knew she had the strength and the skill to wield this weapon one-handed, but this seemed more right, just her and her weapon. She felt an urge to give a sharp battle-cry, and she knew she would never hide behind a shield again.   
  
""I've actually never possessed an enchanted weapon before," her eyes glistened. "Thank you, Montaron," she patted the halfling on the head like a dog, then winced and wiped the hair-grease off on her leggings.   
  
"Yer welcome, lassy," Montaron hugged her calf and grinned. Jade, sensing harmless intent, smiled back. "Don't thank me," the halfling continued. "Thank Thunderhammer. It be he that 'donated' it. I just...delivered it to ye."   
  
At that moment, a loud thunk sounded from the bedroom, and a green-robed wizard came through the door into the outer room.   
  
"Gold!" Xzar shrieked and clapped his hands with delight. "Jewels! Precious gems and scrolls and weapons! So precious and pretty, o little hoards of happiness! We are rich, rich, rich rich rich rich rich rich rich rich rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"   
  
"Aye, an enthusiastic but fair assessment, X," Montaron chuckled. "And, X ol' pal, a present from the rich folks in the mansion north o' town, I gots a special present for ye!" With that he pulled a wand off the table and handed it to the wizard.   
  
"Great currents through lillypads rippling with thunder! A wand of lightning-bolting to blast us asunder!" He began to wave the wand around and point it here and there.   
  
"Ah, X," Montaron winced, "Ye best not be tryin' that wand indoors. Even I knows the bolts bounce."   
  
Another figure, short and stout, came waddling up the staircase leading to the subterranean level of the house. When he saw the pile of treasure, his dwarven eyes glinted greedily and he stroked his white beard.   
  
"Well, well," Kagain rasped in his elderly but spritely manner, "Seems at least one of you hobbits understands proper profit-seeking after all."   
  
"Aye, no farmin' and smokin' the pipeweed all day fer Monty," the thief laughed, and pointedly patted his very lean (especially by hobbit standards) stomach.   
  
"Well, Monty, I guess you're good for something," Jade laughed, tossing back her scarlet hair.   
  
"An' for a few more things," Montaron jested to the warrioress.   
  
"Dream on, _little _boy," Jade laughed in spite of herself, and Montaron shot a truly lusty gaze to the gold. "So tell me, Montaron," she peered down at him skeptically, "What persuaded you to openly share this all with us?"   
  
"Well, it be our deal," Montaron shrugged.   
  
Jade squinted menacingly down at him. "I'd say I don't trust you further than I can throw you, but I could throw you very very far, my hobbit friend."   
  
"Eh," Montaron shrugged, "If we be spelunkin' in the mines, we best _all _be well-equipped, so I best shares the loot for us to use, to buy stuff with. But I had a little free time just before dawn, so's I did spend some spare gold for the company o' that pretty lass who was loiterin' at night in Beregost square. Oh, she was well worth it though...har har!"   
  
"You little piece of filth!" Jade scowled and looked like she was about to strangle Monty, until Kagain chuckled and slapped his knee.   
  
"Nothin' wrong with a little profit-incentive, I say. Money well spent!" the dwarf wheezed with laughter.   
  
Jade chased Montaron around and around the table, as if itching to try out her new bastard sword. This set off Xzar, who began ballet-dancing around the room and singing about flying crumpets and waterfalls of milk, his green robe flying up to reveal skull-printed undershorts.


	10. The Pantheon Menace

Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear.   
  
- Aragorn   
  
  
  
**10. The Pantheon Menace **  
  
Majestic mountains, streaked with spectacular waterfalls, sprawled away on Eronia's horizons. Situated more immediately amongst gardens that were especially vibrant and lush, almost humming with life, even by the standards of this layer of Elysium, was the great marble palace of Morninglory, its polished white stone glowing with reflected sunlight that flooded the palace.   
  
In a great hall, deep within the palace but open to the baby blue sky, surrounding a great table whose surface was patterned both like a chessboard and a detailed and contoured map, sat three figures in ornate chairs of gold.   
  
One was a tall, athletic young man of exceeding beauty, his skin and hair golden and his eyes piercing blue, in robes of cardinal and gold, with a rosy disc over the chest. One was a beautiful human woman with dark, flowing hair and radiant skin, partially covered by a flowing pinkish robe that bore seven stars and radiated magical power. One was a lithe and muscled woman with intense ruby eyes, long dark braids, wearing crimson full platemail like a natural exoskeleton, a knight chesspiece in relief upon the breastplate.   
  
Above the table, patterns of light glistened off swirling mist, revealing a three dimensional image of a young man fencing a ghastly armored figure upon a bridge, red and blue swords humming and clashing.   
  
"The Faith is strong with that one," Lathander spoke.   
  
The armored figure drove back the young man, cleaved off his swordhand, and sent him tumbling off the bridge.   
  
"Use the Faith, Onyx," Lathander called as the maimed youth gripped on.   
  
Mystra merely shook her head and frowned. A moment later, the youth in the image fell. With a wave of Mystra's hand, the image vanished, and turned to another scene, of a small auburn-haired girl skipping through an endless field of pink flowers.   
  
Mystra smiled. "Her." The Lady of Magic waved her hand again, and in the swirling image, a unicorn galloped up to the girl. The three gods watched as the girl mounted and flew off upon her winged equestrian, sailing through void, catching the young man as he fell through the image.   
  
Lathander nodded, but looked skeptically at Mystra. "You believe it will be this girl?"   
  
Mystra laughed. "Look beyond. She transcends this struggle."   
  
The Morninglord looked sidelong at her, and folded his hands. "You refer to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Weave?"   
  
The Red Knight looked across the table at her as well, but Mystra smiled and nodded to the fourth side of the table. A swirling golden mist coalescended into an unlikely figure - a small, gnarled man with wrinkly green skin, pointed ears, leaning feebly on an oaken staff.   
  
"Mmmmm," the little figure hummed through pressed lips, "Presume much, you do! Yes!"   
  
"Aoda," Mystra sternly addressed the emissary-manifestation of the Overfather, "We are not..."   
  
"But you are!" Aoda croaked. "Interefere you must not! Leave to mortals this struggle should you, yes!"   
  
Mystra scoffed. "Amalthea may go where I please."   
  
"Hmmpf!" Aoda grumbled, and shook his staff at Lathander. "Bestowing much power upon the brave squire, you are!"   
  
Lathander politely shook his head. "He is attuned to the Faith, and learning to shape it."   
  
"Hmmmmmp," Aoda reiterated, and plunged his staff onto the marble floor, looking back into the swirling mist of light.   
  
The Red Knight leaned forward in her chair as as image solidified into a scene of a stone ruin under a sky of fire. Two women, similar except in age, dueled with sword and spear past columns and over stones.   
  
"Check," the Lady of Strategy whispered calmly when the girl battle-cried and sprang forward, impaling her foe. She clenched her gauntlets when the woman dug her claws into the girl.   
  
"...mate," Mystra smirked as the girl was tossed into the void.   
  
"You overlook the Black Wizard," the Red Knight retorted matter-of-factly.   
  
"Mmmm," Aoda scratched his knobbly chin as the image swirled, and reformed into a blonde boy skipping over a field of bones. "Hard to see this is. The dark one clouds everything."   
  
Lathander held his jaw tight as a quasit swooped down and conversed with the boy. "You know who this is, Aoda. It is _him _."   
  
------   
  
"Who, me?" shrieked the chalk-skinned man with blazing dark eyes; sinewy muscles rippling beneath his dark, tattered tunic.   
  
"Yes, you!" cackled the lithe woman with dark hair, barbed chains and spiked leathers strapped over a miniscule fraction of the pale flesh of her unnaturally libidinous form. She reeled back with her seven-headed flail and lashed the man across the chest, tearing what was left of his tunic and drawing blood which she licked off the links of the heads as she drew them back again.   
  
"Guilty!" Cyric laughed. "I plead guilty!" With unjust speed, his clawlike left hand drew forth a razoredged longsword from his belt, and slashed it across the bare midriff of Loviatar, whose moan sounded more pleasured than pained as she was wounded and thrown backwards, through the flickering misty image of the boy and the quasit, falling over the map-surfaced table within Cyric's castle in Pandemonium.   
  
"Then you shall be punished!" the Painmaiden leapt up with a feral snarl, wrapping her flail around the sword of the Prince of Lies, and sending both weapons flying. "Succor my pain!" She slashed deep into his face with her cruel black fingernails and gouged out his eyes, while he punched her hard in the chest and stomach, causing immediate bruising and the sounds of cracking ribs.   
  
"Succor the desecration of all who stand in my way," Cyric roared, wrapping his thick arms around Loviatar's waist for a backbreaking bear grip, but pulling her close enough to let sink her gleaming teeth into his neck. She chewed upon the flesh and slurped the crimson blood as he squeezed and felt her vertebrae grating between his abs and forearms.   
  
Loviatar's wicked gaze turned to the holographic image, and her drinking lips smiled as the scarlet-haired girl plummeted through the fiery air. "Yes, my girl..." she giggled evilly. When the green-robed boy, borne by the quasit, swooped into view and snatched her up, she cooed, "Ooh, you beast, you shouldn't have,"into Cyric's ear, which she then bit into.   
  
"Oh, stop it!" Cyric laughed, beating his fists against her back and bruising her kidneys.   
  
"I meant it..." Loviatar snarled, spitting out his ear and scraping the flesh from his face with her fingernails, "You shouldn't have!"   
  
A golden mist coalesced near the struggling pair of evil deities, forming a withered green elf-gnome-like figure.   
  
"Aoda!" Cyric spat blood, and stared with his gouged eyesockets, his mutilated visage more like a grinning skull splattered with blood and meat than a human face. "Sorry! We don't want to buy any Overlord Scout Cookies today! Try Talos's next door, you meddling..."   
  
Aoda merely waved one finger, and Cyric and Loviatar went flying back onto the cold stones of the floor. "Trickery and deceit are your ways, yes, but interfere you must not, young Cyric."   
  
Cyric sat up and raised one fist in an attempt to uncurl the middle finger, but Loviatar had earlier bitten it off, anulling the intended effect.   
  
Loviatar sat up and pouted, folding her blood-soaked hands over her bruised chest. "Oh please! We know what that Bychtra-fied Midnight is up to," she shot Cyric a wink, "Not to mention Boringlord Limpthander and the Red Nightwalker!"   
  
"Sillyvanus has already crossed their path," Cyric hissed through his blood-dribbling mouth as he stood, "It is not hard to foresee Phlegelm, Gimpus, or Mil-make-me-ill!"   
  
"Nor Melancholikki, the Nightscreecher, or Lady Firewhore!" Loviatar wrinkled her bleeding nose as Cyric yanked her to her feet by the barbed chain running over her bare shoulder.   
  
"Watch you all I will," Aoda waved his staff, "Interference leads to imbalance. Imbalance leads to cataclysm. Cataclysm leads to...suffering."   
  
"I fail to see the problem," Lovitiar giggled innocently.   
  
"Be mindful, Loviatar!" Aoda wiggled his stubbly fingers with no subtle intent, "Revealed, your intent is. Watched hard will you be now, hmmp! For begun, this throne war has."   
  
"And I will end it," Cyric snarled, and his ten fingers splayed forth, lightning erupting from them and flying across the room. Aoda held forth one hand, and the bolts deflected harmless around him. Cyric motioned, telekinetically breaking a stone column from the floor and ceiling, and sending it flying at Aoda, who sent it crashing back into a wall with a dismissing wave. The Prince of Lies then opened his palm, and his razoredged longsword left the floor and zoomed into his grip. Aoda summoned an etheral green shortsword and levitated himself into the air as Cyric charged, flying about him and parrying a blizzard of slashes with his own supernatural airborne acrobatics.   
  
Loviatar shrieked with laughter as the entities dueled, and cursed when Aoda plunked back to the floor and sent Cyric sprawling with one gesture. "Enough foolishness this is!" the small emissary croaked. "Ever vigilant of you will Ao and Helm be now, Prince of Lies, yes!" With that, Aoda faded from Pandemonium.   
  
"Get up, you worthless oaf," Loviatar snarled, kicking Cyric as he got to his feet. "Your death shall please me like nothing else, but you've other whims of mine to satisfy in the meantime. As entertaining as that was, even you are no match for the hand of Ao."   
  
"It matters not, harpy," Cyric knocked her away with his arm as he rose. "We shall bide our time while our enemies destroy each other. Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."


	11. Smite Makes Right

The hasty stroke goes oft astray.   
  
- Aragorn   
  
  
  
**11. Smite Makes Right **  
  
The young paladin marched south along the great road.   
  
_Never betray your trust. _  
  
These were dangerous days, he knew. Evil might be anywhere, with any guise.   
  
_Be vigilant. Stand, wait, and watch carefully. _  
  
He had to be ready, he knew. Not to hesitate, not to be tempted by a false face.   
  
_Be fair and diligent in the conduct of your orders. _  
  
Master Firecam had stressed both zeal and temperence. Surely vigilance would reveal propler path between.   
  
_Protect the weak, poor, injured, and young, and do not sacrifice them for others or yourself. _  
  
Who appeared the villain, might be the victim.   
  
_Anticipate attacks and be ready. Know your foes. _  
  
Who appeared the victim, might be the villain.   
  
_Care for your weapons so they may perform their duties when called upon. _  
  
Armor polish was about more than vanity. It was an excellent rustproofer.   
  
_Careful planning always defeats rushed actions in the end. _  
  
Fortune favors the bold. Look before you leap. He who hesitates is lost. The hasty stroke goes oft astray.   
  
_Always obey orders, providing those orders follow the dictates of Helm. _  
  
Who would be so presumptuous as to take the law or their dictates into their own hands, to place their own judgments above that of so many colleagues, or the Watcher himself?   
  
_Demonstrate excellence and purity of loyalty in your role as a guardian and protector. _  
  
Yes, the innocent had to be protected from evil, wherever it might lurk.   
  
  
  
-----------   
  
  
  
"G-guys?" Khalid asked his companions. "I think we've gone far enough from the Arm. I mean, we're in ankheg c-country now!" He looked pointedly at the husk of the ankheg they had just killed as Onyx dumped it in his backpack and strapped it on again, taking a few effortless hops and smiling while Imoen giggled and Jaheira sighed at the showoffish display.   
  
Though with Onyx and Imoen still pondering their strange dreams, and Khalid and Jaheira savoring the last moments of perhaps their most comfortable lodgings for awhile to come, they had risen bright and early, and set off from the Friendly Arm. This had proved bad news for a gang of hobgoblin bandits who had chosen to tarry outside its walls, for the party's morning activites had been motivated by the request of the Arm's proprieter, Bentley (hobgoblins apparently are bad for business), its groundskeeper, Joia (from whom they had somehow managed to steal a ring of flamedance stone), and the gangs' bodies still tarried outside the walls, but their little hobgoblin souls had now departed.   
  
And just now they'd even come across an ankheg! The day was bright and warm, and Onyx was happy, for he was starting to feel more like an adventurer. Shrugging off the nightmares, he thought forward, to the wide world, which now stretched out before him.   
  
When he sent his arrows or longsword through, these hobgoblin bandits, or the man-eating anhkeg, he tried to think about the other innocent people he was averting the deaths or robberies of. Because one thing that years of practice on dummies and targets hadn't taught him - but two summers of kobold-hunting had - was he didn't really like the killing, his intended profession though it was. Except for that one moment, right when he made that killing shot or blow, and the blood filled his nostrils. It gave him a rush. The energy helped him finish off his foe, but at a higher, more human level, after he calmed down again, it disturbed him. But with each kill, he thought upon it less and less. And that fact, if he had realized it, would have disturbed him most of all.   
  
"Right you are," Onyx nodded to Khalid, "Let's get headed back to the Friendly..."   
  
"Halt, be you friend or foe!" a loud, crisp voice interrupted him. They spun around. Onyx, Imoen, Jaheira, and Khalid could all clearly see the man. He was dressed head to toe in armor, and his breastplate proudly bore the unmistakable gauntlet emblem of the god Helm. His helm fully revealed his face, which was that of a a young man with puffy, almost baby-fattish cheeks, smooth but for a few battle or acne scars, and he looked about the same age as Onyx or Imoen, who wrinkled her nose.   
  
"When was the last time someone answered foe, tin-head?" Jaheira griped as the man clanked forward. "Why don't you tell us who the hell you are?"   
  
"I have not come across such rude travelers in a long time; off with you!" the man gasped indignantly, a youth's voice, almost cracking.   
  
"Sorry we upset you Mr. Garbage Can," Jaheira faux-apoligized, the sarcasm so dripping it should have required a bib. "We just want to ask you, is that your natural stench we smell, or did you make a mess in your armor because our weapons scared you?"   
  
"I will not take these insults to my honor, draw steel!" the armored man cried and reached for his sword.   
  
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Onyx stepped in between his party and the man, holding up gauntleted but empty hands towards him and Jaheira. He gave the druid a scowl, then stared down the man and politely said, "I thought great knights only attacked evil, not weary travelers such as us." His open right palm then lowered and twisted, but faced the man still, for a handshake.   
  
The knight stammered and mumbled, his fattish cheeks growing red. He looked at the ground and sighed. "You...are correct. I apologize for my misbehavior. Goodbye and good riddance."   
  
"Actually," Onyx almost chuckled. "We still don't know who you are!"   
  
The man turned again, and looked quite eager at the prospect of introducing himself. He noticed Onyx's right hand, and extended his own, and shook it heartily. "I am Ajantis, squire paladin to Lord Helm. I have come down from the city of Waterdeep to fight against the brigands that make these roads unsafe to travel. What of you?"   
  
Onyx nodded. "Well met. We too want to put an end to the bandit raids. I too, actually, am a paladin."   
  
He expected this Ajantis fellow to light up at this news, but instead the Helmite gasped, "But...where is your tabard? Why do you hide your faith? 'Tis not knightly!"   
  
Onyx sighed. "There's a bounty on my head. I've already been attacked twice, and I must assume these assassins know my profession, for they know much else. While I'm hardly the only paladin in these parts, there are far fewer of us than ordinary swordsmen, particularly _Lathanderian _paladins, and I'm not about to narrow their search. I might as well wear a 'Kick Me' sign."   
  
"B-but..." Ajantis stammered. "That's...isn't there a rule?"   
  
"Yeah," Onyx chuckled. "Don't die."   
  
"'Tis better to die in honor than live in shame," Ajantis recited.   
  
"It's not shame," Onyx shrugged, "Just seems like common sense. Besides, my god is honored by life, not death."   
  
Ajantis bit his lip and stuck up his nose. "Well, I can't say I appro-"   
  
"By Silvanous, you ignoramus!" Jaheira shouted and threw up her hands with maternal exhaustion. It was bad enough she had a months-out-of-his-teens paladin to look after. Here was another even more naive, and less aware of it! "Are you completely devoid of manners and sense!?"   
  
"Jaheira, please," Onyx's eyes were friendly upon her, and his voice neither pleading nor commanding.   
  
Ajantis sighed, and his nose jerked from the sky to the ground. "M'lady, I must apologize again. You're right. Master Firecam would not approve, I'm sure."   
  
The druid folded her arms over her leathered chest and shook her head, looking at Onyx and Ajantis and Imoen. She merely exhaled forecully and groaned.   
  
"Tell me," Onyx smiled, and Ajantis smiled back as to a schoolmate, "Of you and this Firecam? I am from Candlekeep, and know too little of the knightly organizations of the region."   
  
"Ah," Ajantis inhaled eagerly, straightened his posture, and lifted his nose, "I am of the noble Ilvastarr family of Waterdeep. My father has seemed content to pass off his holdings to my elder brother, but has patronized my knighthood; and saw to it I was schooled in swordplay under the best, such as Myrmith Splendon - " Onyx shrugged and Ajantis continued, "Earning the notice of Sir Keldorn Firecam of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, under whom I now squire. I have come to the beplagued Sword Coast seeking to curtail this illicit activity - or at least play some part, I mean - and prove myself worthy of full knighthood. And what of you? For whom did or do you squire?"   
  
Onyx shrugged, "No one really. I was...divinely ordained sorta by accident," Imoen shuddered and rubbed her temple, "and I learned fencing and archery from Jondalar - nah, you wouldn't know him - at the Keep. Immy here did too. We're headed south, to investigate the myhsterious plague of the Nashkel mines."   
  
Ajantis lit up like a schoolboy, "In that case, why do we not join forces against whatever contemptible law-breakers must be behind it!"   
  
Onyx sighed. _Is this what all my colleagues are going to be like? _He politely answered, "Sounds good to us, we're always on the lookout for another sword arm. I am Onyx, this is Imoen," he put an arm around his friend, "And they are Jaheira and Khalid." Khalid wave-nodded happily and Jaheira gave a disdainful but thinly polite nod.   
  
"Together we shall smite the evildoers and outlaws that plague this land!" Ajantis waved a mailed finger in the air.   
  
"Better add monsters to that list, Sir Ajantis, and fast," Onyx whipped an arrow out of his quiver and pointed it strung to a mound of moving dirt, "Ankheg on your six!"   
  
Onyx took a level-torso sidestep to get in a shot, and flanking him, Khalid and Imoen drew their bows. Jaheira twirled her sling, and the four got off shots around Ajantis as the knight turned to find the enormous green-shelled anthropod chomping its pincers with a desire to pierce the artificial exoskeleton of its intended meal. The mammal drew its metal mandible and attacked back, standing oh so close.   
  
"Back up," Onyx hollered as he strung a second arrow, "You're endangered, and blocking our shots!"   
  
"For Helm!" Ajantis called in a high tenor and stabbed at the beast's eye. It reeled back, more segments popping from the ground, and the knight's thrust fell short. The ankheg spread its mandibles and spat a green glob of steaming acid into the round face of Ajantis, and the paladin reeled back, screaming, dropping his sword and clutching his face.   
  
Ironically, this proved the beast's undoing, for Khalid and Onyx now had clear shots, and sent two arrows into the yellowish flesh within its mouth. The force behind Onyx's composite bow sent the tip of his arrow portruding through the back of the creature's head, and the five above-ground segments of the beast slumped onto the churned dirt.   
  
Jaheira rushed to Ajantis's side with her hands opened to heal, but the squire removed his own to show an undamaged face. "The providence of Helm," he smiled weakly.   
  
Jaheira snarled, but backed up and said nothing. "Glad you're fine," Onyx clapped Ajantis on his shoulder-plate, "But stick to your bow next time."   
  
"It's much safer than having to get c-c-close," Khalid nodded with raised eyebrows.   
  
"I use no _bow _!" Ajantis protested.   
  
"What?" Onyx's jaw hung open.   
  
"I am classically trained in honorable combat! Splendon Classical! Aren't you?"   
  
"What?" Onyx's jaw hung open. "No, I learned Galvaron Tactical. Engage in melee only when an opponent's ranged superiority outweights your own to a sufficient degree to warrant the lost time spent advancing! Let the other godsdamn fool advance while you shoot!"   
  
Ajantis shuffled on his feet. "Well, dueling _is _the highest form of combat."   
  
"I like archery!" Imoen offered brightly. "Magic is really cool too, like I saw this one spell where..." she quickly trailed off under Jaheira's scowl.   
  
Onyx looked down at his fingers, and curled and uncurled them several times, then wiggled them. "No bow? I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't shoot."   
  
"Enough," Jaheira sighed, "Let us not stand around! We are quite far enough from the Arm, as my husband noticed long enough ago now!"   
  
Onyx nodded, and he and Khalid set about husking the fresh ankheg carcass. Ajantis took the husk upon his back, and the five headed on.


	12. Run Viccy Run

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.   
  
- Gandalf   
  
  
  
Place more importance in activities that help others than on strict adherence to rules, rituals, and the dictates of your seniors.   
  
- Dogma of Lathander   
  
Know your foes.   
  
- Dogma of Helm   
  
Consorting with the faithful of good deities is a sin except in business dealings or to corrupt them from their beliefs.   
  
- Dogma of Shar   
  
  
  
**12. Run Viccy Run **  
  
In the sparse woods of Peldvale, a drow woman ran, cursing the thinness of the trees. So hard to hide in these wide-open, empty, endless-sky surface lands. Except in the thickest forests, where the canopy of trees formed a cavernous cover, she always felt horribly exposed in this strange above-ground world. The sky was such a massive, open pit; she almost felt as if gravity were about to reverse and send her falling, not down, but _up _, up into the endless emptiness.   
  
Night, the domain of her Goddess though it was, was little better. The stars were like gleaming spear points at the bottom of a wide, deep pit. But now, the sun, how it burned. The pale sky harbored no clouds, only that furious orb which so many fool surfacers _worshipped _, of all thinigs.   
  
And every time she stumbled in her panicked flight from the soldier pursuing her, she didn't want to get up, she wanted to cling the grass, afraid of falling into the sky. But she would get up again as the clangs and threats grew louder behind her. He had been chasing her for miles, and her meager stamina was almost used up, as were the spells that she otherwise might have used to fight rather than flee, to smite this pathetic _rivvil _. She was panting and sweating heavily. _Protect me Shar, please. From the fanatical spider queen below and the fanatical men above. _  
  
She had a stitch in her slight side, she was panting and sweating, and she stumbled to the ground again. She tried to get up, and she could hear the soldier behind her shouting for her to halt. Tears welled up in her eyes and she was a hair from giving up and preparing for death, against her nigh-undying survivor's nature, when she caught through her tears five figures ahead.   
  
"Help me!" she called to them, forcing a desperation into her voice that was genuine, but stung her drow pride. "If you don't help me, they'll kill me!"   
  
"Calm down, we'll help you. Just tell us who you are," shouted the one in the lead, a tall man whose armor betrayed no allegiance of any sort.   
  
"My name is Viconia," she gasped. "I...I'm not from around here, thank you so much for helping."   
  
She looked over the group. A less acute, perhaps surfacer, eye would have noticed that this first man seemed to be leader and very confident, but Viconia's eyes had been trained by decades upon decades of Underdark politics, power struggles, and intricate and dangerous social situations, and she could tell from the subtlest hints of his movements that he was not an entirely confident man, but one who was green with inexperience, confused by his surroundings, and fearful of something.   
  
Next to him stood a shorter, stockier man who was similarly armored, wearing an open-faced helm that showed fat cheeks and beady eyes, and on his chest he bore an emblem that Viconia recognized as that of the surface-god Helm. _Oh Shar no, _she thought, _Not Helm. Please, not Helm. _Very, very unpleasant memories flashed through her mind, not altogether different from her current predicament at the hands of the Flaming Fist. Some worse.   
  
A third man stepped beside this one, much shorter and slimmer but similarly equipped, and Viconia instantly recognized him a _tu'rilthiir _. A female half-breed stood beside him, holding a quarterstaff and glaring.   
  
The fifth figure, a slim human girl in bright purple leathers, stood next to the first man and held his hand; from their mutual body language she marked them as undoubtedly brother and sister. The girl peered at her curiously. Far more curiously than most surfacers peered at her. It seemed foregin to her, for it was not the ubiquitous stares of disapproval or simpleton's amazement, but the friendly, optimistic curiosity of a highly intelligent child.   
  
She heard the clanking close behind her, and turned.   
  
"Step aside travelers, I am a member of the Flaming Fist," the solider ordered in a gruff voice as his human eyes made out this group and he came upon them and her. "The woman you are harboring is wanted for murder of the foulest sort. She is a dark elf; it should be obvious that she is evil."   
  
"He lies, I've done nothing wrong," Viconia protested, turning to the five.   
  
---   
  
Onyx's eyes darted back and forth between these two. The soldier moved for the drow, but feeling a skeptical twinge, he strode forward and she scurried behind him as he held up an empty palm towards the Fist. "Whoa, slow down," he managed in his friendlist voice, "Murder? Of whom?"   
  
The soldier balked. "She is a drow! Isn't it obvious? We have reports from respected citizens of her sacrificing children to her spider god and feasting upon their blood!"   
  
"That would be Lolth," Onyx's eyes darted to the corner of their sockets, a textbook in his mind's eye, "Yet her belt bears the holy symbol of Shar. Odd testimony. Has she been tried?"   
  
The Fist snarled impatiently. "Well, we erected a pyre but she fled! For that I sentence her to death!"   
  
Onyx protested, "But I'm not convinced she's doing anyth-"   
  
"Can't you sense it?" Ajantis spoke up alongside him. "She's evil!"   
  
"Paladins, eh?" the Fist smiled. "I knew she was evil! Well boys, let's smite the witc-"   
  
"Wait!" Onyx shouted, his voice rising. "That's like a thought crime! That can't be leg-"   
  
"She is sentenced, boy," the Fist barked.   
  
"We cannot break the law to of all things, harbor evil!" Ajantis concurred.   
  
Onyx shook his head in desperate denial. "No, no, this can't be right."   
  
_Tethtoril placed a holy symbol in the hands of Onyx of twelve.   
  
"There are three aspects of law.   
  
When it promotes freedom and combats its infringement, it is justice.   
  
When it serves no purpose good or ill save as an obstacle, it is bureaucracy.   
  
When it punishes the innocent and devours freedom, it is tyranny.   
  
You must uphold one and only one of these aspects. Never misunderstand which." _  
  
"It has to be!" Ajantis shouted, to himself as much as the others.   
  
The Fist glared at Onyx. "Stand down boy. Ah am tha law."   
  
"No," Onyx exhaled, now quite confidence and calm. "You're a tyrant in a teapot."   
  
Ajantis took a step forward, turned and stood abreast of the Flaming Fist soldier. "Stand down!" he cried to Onyx. "You can't attack us!"   
  
"I'm not," Onyx nodded his head backwards, "We're defending her." Jaheira stepped astride him in Ajantis's place, planting her quarterstaff firmly on the ground. Khalid stepped up beside her, with a hand on his hilt, forming a three-strong wall between Viconia and the two who wished her dead. Behind them, Imoen's knuckles whitened on her bow.   
  
"A stupid decision!" the soldier cried. "For harboring a murderer I sentence you all to death!" He made a clumsy charge, and Ajantis alongside him.   
  
Jaheira backed up and chanted an exotic phrase like flowing water, and vines sprang up from the ground around Ajantis, snaking around and around his legs as he came upon Khalid, who, true to form, began his melee engagmenet with a leap backwards, landing him just outside of the Helmite's now-limited reach.   
  
The soldier made a crude overhead swing at Onyx, who blocked it by raising his shield, and thrust his own sword forward at belly height, twisting his body and putting his weight and shoulder muscles behind it. His sword tip cleft between two plates of the Fist's mail, he then twisted and removed it, and kicked the gutted soldier to the ground.   
  
Ajantis, his legs grappled by vines but his arms still free, was swinging his sword about wildly.   
  
"Use your bow," Jaheira snorted.   
  
He stopped dead still and dropped his sword when Imoen pointed her drawn arrow at him. He glared at the group angrily.   
  
Behind them, the laughter of the drow woman resonated is sharp, confident contrast to her last utterances. She grasped the mace at her belt, and raised it high and came forward again unlike the hunted creature she had been a moment before, intending for Ajantis's helmed head. " _Lil Alurl! _For Shar!"   
  
"Stop, miss Viconia!" Onyx's left arm and shield flung out, and he turned toward the drow. "He's harmless now."   
  
She snorted, and turned to face him and his companions, "I thank you for risking yourselves on my behalf," her voice grew breathy and slightly desperate again, "I know what you are thinking, you see my dark skin and won't trust me for it. I am a dark elf, but I'm an outcast. I need your help. As you noticed, I no longer receive my powers from the spider gods you surface dwellers fear so; the Goddess Shar grants me wisdom, and she is a surface divinity. If you'd let me join your group, I would be most grateful. I have no where else to go," she bit her lip, choking back the pride in her throat.   
  
"We would welcome that," Onyx nodded, "Strength in numbers. I myself," he smiled at her, "Am a hunted fellow, and I don't even know why. Perhaps we can protect one another against this sort of thing."   
  
"Don't do it, Onyx!" Ajantis shouted and wobbled. "She's evil!"   
  
"Yes, once again, I can see," Onyx responded tiredly.   
  
_Is he a paladin too? _Viconia wondered. _I must be wary. Sometimes the only thing worse than one of these surfacer warriors who wants to kill you immediately is one who has a reason not to. _  
  
Turning to Viconia again, Onyx managed a warm smile. "As long as you'll not rob or harm myself, my companions, or innocent townsfolk and such while in our company, I see no reason a paladin and a Sharran cannot watch each other's backs on the dangerous roads in such dark days as these."   
  
"I won't disappoint you, I promise," Viconia stated.   
  
"See that you don't," Onyx nodded, "We are headed south, to Nashkel, by way of Beregost, where we mean to investigate a purported taint of the mined iron in that area. A cleric would be most useful in our party, but we'll understand if such a potentially dangerous exploit is not to your tastes."   
  
"I am not afraid, male!" Viconia stuck her nose up. "Show me the way!"   
  
The party left the scene with as many members as it had come, with Ajantis shouting after them and struggling as he hacked and wrestled with the vines.   
  
"My Order will hear of this!" he shouted, his voice cracking, "So will the law! You haven't heard the last of Sir Ajantis Ilvastarr!"


	13. Blood and Circuses

Thou fool, no living man may hinder me!   
  
- The witch king of Angmar   
  
But no living man am I.   
  
- Eowyn   
  
  
  
**13. Blood and Circuses **  
  
The brightly colored and frivilously occupied milled around.   
  
_Lo do I see my father _  
  
The statue of the woman stood solemn, determined, and strong.   
  
_Lo do I see my mother _  
  
Her face was fair but grim, and stared forward.   
  
_Lo do I see the line of my people _  
  
Her body was poised for stride and strike.   
  
_Stretching back to the beginning _  
  
Her hammer was raised and ready.   
  
_They bid me come and take my place among them _  
  
The statue looked more roused for action than those about it.   
  
_Where the brave shall live in Valhalla _  
  
But now it stood still and silent, only to be gawked at.   
  
_Forever! _  
  
  
-----   
  
  
As her party traveled south from Beregost that morning, Jade's mind had swum with her strange dreams. They had reached Nashkel midday, and found mayor Berron Ghastkill. His information had been little: miners were disappearing, the iron was tainted; and information of any sort was requested. Consequently, their stay in the tiny hamlet had been short, and Jade had managed to get through without anyone coming for her head. _And if they do, _the young woman thought, _I just hope they resemble those two hicks Onyx and I killed in Candlekeep more than the spiky-armored man who slew Gorion outside. _  
  
Luckily, extremely tall men with spiky armor and glowing eyes being rather conspicuous, she was sure he at least they hadn't seen. A portly man outside the town's temple had mistaken her for one 'Greywolf' who apparently had had 200 gold incoming. _Not anymore, _she grinned. Unfortuantely, the town's single smithy hadn't had anything to spend it own beyond more arrows, bolts, darts, and throwing axes to replace the many they'd lodged in hobgoblin bandits reaching the city, and so, as a last stop before reaching the mines themselves, they were now exploring a nearby traveling carnival, the Nottvery Fair.   
  
The carnival seemed relatievely safe, and the four companions had split up. Xzar had wandered off to a secluded tent from which he had claimed to 'smell the fumes of the Sock Puppet Queen's garden of lotus and her bidding to come so that he might better here the voices within the trees.' Montaron was working the crowd, his efforts bolstered by the ludicrously baggy style that was in fashion for the wealthy. Kagain's expert haggling drove up the prices of gear and jewelry they'd acquired from the ruffian gangs luckless enough to cross them. Jade was perusing the merchandise of other merchants, but more importantly, she was just taking in the sights and sounds. As with many things the past few days, she'd never seen anything like this carnival, and it fascinated her, mostly for the better.   
  
Nearby, Xzar came wandering out of his large tent, a cloud of black lotus fumes puffing out of the doorway and following him, the stench thoroughly soaked into his robes.   
  
"Oh yes, Monty, it's all here now," he called to his absent halfling friend, looking around and even up into the air and pointing at nothing that could be seen by the fairgoers who gave him many a strange glance and wide berth, "Yes, I can finally see them. The smiley faces! I can see them all now!!!!! Oompf!"   
  
Xzar flopped onto his back, and looked up to see a yellow-robed wizard he had bumped smiling down at him. "AHHH!!!!" the necromancer shrieked, "Stop touching me!!!"   
  
"Howdy there," the wizard smiled as Xzar got to his feet, "You have stumbled up the Great Gazib!" He looked around at a small assembled crowd. "Hi, come all and welcome to the Great Gazib Show, starring yours truly, the Great Gazib!!!! Allow me to introduce the Amazing Oopah, the world's only exploding ogre!!"   
  
The crowd 'oood' and 'ahhhed', and gasped with fright when Gazib summoned an ogre.   
  
"Ooh, lousy conjurers," Xzar grumbled, biting his fist, "All a buncha crowd-pleasing cantrippers! Yes, Sock Puppet Queen, I will Kill the Konjurers, may the voices of the flowers guide the way!"   
  
Gazib waved his arms, and 'Oopah' the ogre barely had taken a grunt before exploding, and the crowd shrieked while Xzar ceased fuming and clapped his hands merrily at the spectacle of blood and gore. "Again! Again!" the necromancer cried, catching a flying ogre-spleen out of the air and tucking it into his pocket to grind into spell components later.   
  
"Let's see that crowd pleaser one more time!" Gazib laughed and began his spell again. Oopah reappeared, looking none the worse for wear.   
  
"Oopah no like!" the exploding ogre grumbled, gripping his enormous morning star.   
  
"Now now," Gazib chuckled nervously, patting Oopah on his enormous warty forearm and grinning hucksterishly at the crowd. "He does this all the time! He is a Professional!"   
  
"Do you explode?" Xzar stared blankly at the conjurer. He then looked up at Oopah. "Oopah, my little boy, does Gazib like exploding too?"   
  
"Ummm," the ogre bit a large black fingernail.   
  
"No, no, Oopah, _you _explode!" Gazib shrieked, and began to wave his hands, but just before he finished, Xzar caught Oopah's beady eyes, and pointed at Gazib. The ogre gave a hearty simpleton's laugh, and smashed its heavy weapon into the conjurer, who more or less then exploded.   
  
"Ooo goodie!" Xzar's fists shot up and snatched something, "I stole Gazib's heart. Literally. The Sock Puppet Queen will be pleased."   
  
Elsewhere, Jade was wandering into a small blue-and-purple tent, expecting to find yet another vendor. Rather, she found, in between the cluttered shelves lining the walls of the tent, a black-bearded man in green mage garbs accosting a red-robed elderly woman.   
  
"What's this about?" Jade demanded, looking angrily at the woman's frightened face and drawing her new golden-hilted bastard sword in a two-handed grip.   
  
"You there!" the man spun from the woman to face Jade, and pointed an accusing, gnarled fingernail at her. "Stay back!! Come closer and I'll kill her! I'm serious. Don't make me do it! All I have to say is the last word of my spell and she'll die."   
  
"And why?" Jade snarled.   
  
"She's a witch!" the man shrieked. "She'll use her magics to poison the children of this town! She'll butcher the livestock and she'll seduce the young men, making them her puppets she must be killed!"   
  
"You yourself are a mage," Jade's full lips were twisted into a full sneer now. "Weren't you just about to kill her with a 'spell'? Get out of here, maggot, before I kick you out off the end of my blade."   
  
"No one mocks the great Zordal!" the green-robed wizard snarled, "You will pay for you inso-"   
  
"KAIIII!!!"   
  
Jade's anger pumped through her muscles and she pushed her shining blade through the air between her and Zordal. A crescent of crimson blood flew about the tent, splattering against the tent walls, Zordal's throat sliced wide open. Before he could collapse, Jade spun half-circle while whipping her blade back and thrusting it under her armpit and through his chest. Her left heel shot up behind herself to kick him him, she reversed her grip while pushing off his groin to spin to face him again, then planted her left foot and used her right to kick him off her sword and to the floor.   
  
"Like I said," Jade smiled smugly while cleaning her sword on the body's robes. "Off the end of my blade. Shoulda flapped your lips for casting, not comebacks. Hick," she spat on his body. She looked up at the red-robed old woman, who relaxed visibly. "You alright, madam?"   
  
The woman nodded. "Thank you for rescuing me. I am Bentha, and yes you could call me a witch, for a do use magic. However," she scoffed and gazed disdainfully at Zordal's fresh corpse, "I have no intentions of killing the livestock or 'seducing' the young men. Zordal, who none-too-coincidentally failed to seduce _me _back in our day, is an old enemy of mine, one who has caused me and my family great pain over the years. If you had not walked in at that moment, young lady, I would have been killed. I thank you again."   
  
"My pleasure," Jade smiled, and clapped the woman lightly on the shoulder. She sighed, "The whole 'witch' thing...angers me. I was once called as much by the tyrant of my small town for expressing an interest in your craft. I might have learned it from my late father, but as you can see, I chose the path of the warrior."   
  
"Well, dearie," the kindly woman smiled and patted her on the arm, "It is never too late, you know."   
  
The tent-flaps opened and Xzar strode through, wearing Gazib's adventurer's robe, and reeking of blood and black lotus. His wild green eyes appraised the women for only a moment before focusing on the dead wizard. "More treasure...and spell components!" he clapped his hand excitedly. Then he glanced up at the women again, making eye contact and seeming more lucid. "Are you okay, mommy?" He asked Jade. "Who is your new friend?"   
  
"Hello, young man, I'm Bentha," the woman reached out to shake hands, but retracted hers when she saw that his held Gazib's beating heart. "Jade was just telling me how she once thought of being a wizard, like you, sir, I take it," She then looked at the beating heart again. "Well, maybe not _exactly _like you..."   
  
"Oh yes!" Xzar suddenly wrapped his arm (mercifully, the one without the heart) around Jade's shoulders, "We were twelve! I gave her that idea actually! Well, me and the Pink Pixie did..."   
  
"X!" Jade's jaw dropped open and she looked into the necromancer's tattooed face, "You remember!"   
  
Xzar continued obliviously, "...such a nice wizardess she'd have made, but such a nice warrior too! Excellent for chopping up spell components for meeee!" He leaned his head forward, darted his eyes around, and in a conspiratorial whisper added, "...the Frog Prince Of Lillypad-Land told me so!"   
  
After looting Zordal and receiving a gift of a scroll from Bentha, the pair exited the tent to come almost face to face with a very small hodded halfling with a very loud voice.   
  
"Come one, come all!" he boomed, gesturing to a nearby statue nearly thrice his height. "Take a look at the stone warrior maiden. How long has she been trapped in this petrified form, no one knows! Be the first to learn, for the mere price of 500 gold. For that small amount of money, I shall give you a magic scroll, and with this scroll you can release the maiden from her stone prison. Think of the gratitude she would feel to her saviors. Perhaps she's a princess from some far off land, or maybe a powerful sorceress in search of a concubine. You can't afford not to know! Buy the scroll! A fair deal from your pal, Zeke!"   
  
Jade studied the statue to which this Zeke gnome was pointing. It was perfectly lifelike, of a robed woman holding a hammer. Jade walked up to it and looked closer. The face of the woman had a strange look. _Perhaps bad sculpting? _she wondered, not trusting Zeke for an instant. Then her eyebrows arched as she recognized the features - the large-but-smooth nose, the deep eyes, the wide jaw. The far-northerner look; she'd seen it a few times in visitors to Candlekeep.   
  
"500 gold," Jade muttered, "Seems a bit steep."   
  
"Aye, don't worry," a familiar greasy voice announced, "I already have such a scroll."   
  
"Montaron?" Jade looked down to see her associate grinning mischeviously and holding up a Stone to Flesh scroll. "Where'd you.."   
  
"Tarnation!" Zeke cursed. "That's...eh...that one's a fake! It's cursed, yeah! Here, let me show you what a REAL....hey, where did _my _scroll go?" he patted his empty pockets and looked suspiciously at the scroll Montaron held. The other halfling shrugged innocently. "Confound it!" Zeke moaned and trudged off dejectedly.   
  
"You know," Kagain wheezed as he strolled up, no longer carrying a load of swords on his back, and gleefully patting a bulging coin pouch, "We could always just sell it back to 'em."   
  
Jade bit her lower lip and gazed into the statue's eyes. The woman was frozen midscream, not a terrified shriek, but a defiant, angry roar.   
  
_REVENGE. _  
  
Jade shook the voice from her head. "I.."   
  
Kagain spat, "Can't afford to be wastin' it, lassie! Should get cold, hard gold or save it fer any basilisks we might meet."   
  
" _I _say we free her," Montaron rubbed his small hands, "I'm sure she'd be grateful! Don't forget to mention it was I who acq-OUCH!"   
  
Jade gave the halfling a light kick in the side (barely lifting her leg to do so), and glared at him, then looked back at the statue. "She.." she stared at the statue's pourd chest. _Explains Monty _. "She bears a relief of Tempus's Shield, and she holds a hammer. Likely she is a cleric - which we could use in the mines." _And the look on her face...the determination _. Jade smiled at the odditiy of feeling comraderie with a block of rock.   
  
"Alright, alright," Kagain huffed, "This'd better pay off!"   
  
Xzar sang, "Jadey Jadey quite contradey, how does your statue garden grow..."   
  
Jade read the scroll, then she held it face-out toward the statue. The runes seemed to leap off the page and hop into the statue, its gray stone softening into mail and cloth and flesh, and it began to move. Jade feigned aside just before the hammer, now metal and not stone, swung through the air where her head had been.   
  
"DIE TRANZI---what?"   
  
The woman blinked her ice-blue eyes and shook her long blonde hair which fell haphazardly over her headband. She turned to face the party, squinting in the sunlight. "Where...what..." then suddenly she focued on the party. "Who...where's Tranzig? Who are you?"   
  
"You were petrified, miss," Jade looked calmly at the woman, "I know not for how long. I just revived you."   
  
The woman stood silent for a moment, thinking, and looking over the four adventurers, then gave a hearty laugh. "Hail, fellow warriors. I am Branwen, a War-priest from the Norheim isles. I suppose I have been trapped in stone for what seems like an eternity. You have saved me, and for that I owe you my life. I am indebted to you and by Tempus, I leave no debt unpaid. Let me join whatever cause you're fighting for. I should make a valuable ally and bring the favor of the Lord of Battles upon us."   
  
Jade gave a told-ya-so smile down to Kagain, who mumbled gruffly into his beard while she looked Branwen in her blue eyes, "Welcome to my gang."   
  
"I am glad to be part of your war party," Branwen proclaimed. "I will not make you regret your decision. A word of caution though: beware of the dog that entrapped me in stone. Tranzig he called himself. He was in the employ of a mercenary group, but I do not know the name. I shall see him dead before I see the shores of home again!"   
  
Jade smiled. "I seek my father's murderer. You shall have your revenge, and I shall have mine."   
  
Branwen nodded with approval, and traded a wrist-handshake with Jade. "The Lord of Battles will smile upon us, sister."   
  
"Pray tell," Jade asked, "How did this all come about?"   
  
Brawnen unhesitantly began, "When I came to the mainland, I made a living by offering my clerical services to local militias from Luskan to Waterdeep to lastly Nashkel, where I came to join the adventuring group of the mage Tranzig. Proud I was to be an adventurer, but only briefly, for I found out soon the sort of 'adventuring' Tranzig did was rather banditry - of unarmed merchants! To attack the unarmed is the basest of villainy! I would have no part of it, and rebelled, but Tranzig turned me to stone in the ensuing fight. That, of course, is the last thing I remember before waking to see your party."   
  
"I do hope we find this Tranzig," Jade sneered, "But pray tell, in my childhood learned I recall that most of the Norheim allow only men into their clergy?"   
  
"You southerners are overeducated," Branwen scoffed, "But a good question. The men of my tribe, the Seawolf of the same-named island, forbade it, but Tempus in his wisdom granted me power. This should have been proof enough to the men of the Lord's will, but they were stubborn yet. I had to flee my home; and that is how I came to the Sword Coast."   
  
"I'm sorry," Jade sighed, "I myself slew a witch-hunter just now. I have traveled little, but it now seems this sort of absurdity pervades Faerun."   
  
"Twas but an obstacle Tempus put in my way, and I have overcome it," Branwen declared. "We must all face them. Injustice is a battle everywhere!" She looked around. "Where are we anyway?"   
  
Jade smiled. "Nottvery Fair."


	14. To Bard or not to Bard

We live now upon an island amid many perils, and our hands are more often upon the bowstring than upon the harp.   
  
-Haldir   
  
  
  
**14. To Bard or not to Bard **  
  
"'Tis a beautiful day in the neighborhood!" the young bard cried with dreamy glee as he strolled down the street, grinning and winking at passersby. He broke into a skip and a song.   
  
_"'Tis a beautiful day in the neighborhood,   
A beautiful day for an adventurer,   
Won't you have one...   
Could you have one...   
  
Let's memorize magic and journey around,   
To polish off armor just reasons abound,   
Could you find one...   
Let's go find one...   
  
I've always wanted to have an adventure just like you!   
I've always wanted to go on a quest with you!   
  
So, let's make the most of this beautiful day,   
Heroes or madcaps, we might as well say:   
Would you have one?   
Could you have one?   
Let's go adventure!   
Don't just ponder,   
Let's go wander,   
Won't we have an adventure?" _  
  
He jumped into the air, kicking his heels together with a twinkle in his eye, and cartwheeled twice before tripping over and landing in a cart and spraying crushed watermelon juice about the square.   
  
  
----   
  
  
"WOW!" Imoen bubbled as her party strode into Beregost at dusk. "I've never seen a city this big!"   
  
"This is but a modest town, child," Jaheira smiled.   
  
"But..." Imoen looked around, "Look at how many buildings there are! And all these people! And..ick! What's that smell!?" The purple-suited thief wrinkled her nose.   
  
"That, child, is the smell of so-called civilization," the druid likewise scowled at the city-stench, "The features you'll note of this town, both good and bad, you will find to be only more extreme should you ever venture to large cities such as Baldur's Gate, Athkatla, Waterdeep..."   
  
"...or Mezoberranzan," Viconia grinned. Jaheira snorted.   
  
"Ooh," whistled Imoen, "I want to go there! I want to go everywhere!"   
  
"In time, perhaps you will," Jaheira smiled.   
  
"Have you been there? To Baldur's Gate and A-whatchama-ka?" Imoen asked.   
  
"Yes," Jaheira nodded, "Khalid and I have been to both cities several times. Both cities are a frantic bustle of people, the buildings stretch on and on..."   
  
"Wow! Imoen smiled, "Imagine how much stuff there is to sneak thr- um, explore, in big cities like that! I'm sooo curious!"   
  
"Yes, but cities also have many more ruffians and dangers in them too, and those who look into such things find themselves drawn there more often than they'd like."   
  
Onyx, who had been walking ahead and listening to Khalid stutter out swordsman's wisdom, perked up at this last line and looked over his shoulder at Jaheira.   
  
"Have you two been other places?" Imoen asked Jaheira innocently.   
  
"Yes," Jaheira sighed, "In fact, we are both _from _other places; lands to the south. I am from Tethyr, and Khalid is from Calimshan."   
  
Onyx nodded to Khalid, "Yes, your name does sound Calimshanite, though my knowledge is limited to books."   
  
Khalid smiled, "P-pretty p-p-percetive of you, Onyx."   
  
"Forgive my intrusion," Onyx began, banking on Khalid's genuine openness - on most matters, "But I was under the impression that elves and half-elves were quite rare in Calimshan."   
  
Khalid nodded, and not the least bit defensively answer, "Yes, I...well, my father was a wealthy merchant there, and my mother was....just one of his mistresses, I'm afraid. Kept an elf for variety and all that." He looked down sadly, and Onyx found himself truly appreciating his new friend's honesty.   
  
Onyx's brow furrowed. "Was she a slave? I have heard that such practices are quite common in Calimshan, and in fact quite legal. In fact the more I learn about that place, the less I..."   
  
"Every culture has its share of evils," Jaheira cut him off, "Be not so quick to judge."   
  
"Well, sorry for prying," Onyx shrugged, "Who said I liked this bandit-run region either?" he chuckled with both levity and gravity.   
  
Khalid continued, "Actually, she was just a servant, though I suppose it's not as if she had anywhere else to g-g-go. I bear my father no ill will, but I wish he hadn't ig-g-gnored me for my human brothers. I ended up j-j-j-just j-joining the city milita and spending my time studying martial tactics, and, well, eventually I left to seek my fortune - and love," he took Jaheira's hand and she smiled, "Here."   
  
Onyx nodded. He kept noticing how the half-elven couple avoided mention of their recent pasts, how they knew Gorion and anyone who'd recently employed them and such. He'd learned about Jaheira's childhood; her noble parents dead at the hands of egalitarian revolutionaries and her caretaker's flight to the grove where she would learn the ways of a druid and a warrior; but she too played close to the chest with her more recent past. Indeed, they'd even avoided mentioning how they'd met each other, a question most couples bubbled effusively in answering, and Onyx suspected that it had something to do with their link to Gorion, indeed they might have even met _through _him for all he knew.   
  
The young paladin's thoughts were interrupted by the cacophonous shout of a hooded man standing in front of the Burning Wizard tavern where their footsteps had now taken them.   
  
"Hail, adventurers," the man sang in a high tenor, throwing back a watermelon-juice-splattered hood to reveal a smooth, very boyish and foppish face with a very goofy grin and dreamer's eyes, "I have a proposal for you. I have heard that you're an excellent group of warriors!"   
  
Onyx grew suspicious. He recognized them? Was it a bluff or a misstatement? This goofy guy looked much more prone to that sort of foolishness than likely to be another assassin. Then again, the bounty hunters he'd come across so far hadn't exactly been brooding scholars, so who knew?   
  
"Er, where'd you hear that?" Onyx furrowed his brow.   
  
"Oh, uh," the young man grinned, "Lucky guess."   
  
"Riiiight..." Onyx groaned, relieved.   
  
"How would you like a well-paying job as bodyguards for my mistress?" the man called. He smiled lopsidedly and gave a friendly, almost clownish wave. "I'm Garrick and I work for Silke Rosena. She's the most skilled musician and actor along the Sword Coast; in fact, she's to play at the Duchal palace before the month's done. But she's been having some problems of late. Some thugs have been hired by Feldepost to hurt her bad, because she didn't perform at the inn when she was supposed to. You can't blame her for not showing up, what with a villain like Feldepost running the place," he shrugged with an uncontrolled flop of his gangly youth's body. "She needs mercenaries to protect her until she's ready to go to Baldur's Gate. She's willing to pay about 300 gold."   
  
Onyx looked this Garrick over. Seemed to be a minstrel like this supposed mistress, judging from the harp at his belt. A crossbow hung on the other side, and chainmail peeked out from beneath his jesterlike and red-green-brown tunic. His face was actually not so unlike Onyx's - they shared high cheeks, bright blue eyes, short brown hair, and high foreheads. Garrick was shorter and thinner, but with a similar frame, if wearing far less muscle on said skeleton, and roguish pursuits do favor light steps and hands. _This guy almost looks like a caricature of me! _Onyx thought with a mental laugh. Garrick, looking back, smirked with much the reverse thought. _Hey! This guy looks like he's going for the same 'Robin Locksley' look I did when we performed 'Prince of Rogues'! _  
  
Indeed, they looked almost as lost brothers, their differences being the sorts of things one choses. Whereas Garrick had a lanky build and an utterly smooth face - Onyx wondered if he even could've grown facial hair - Onyx had the face a young man will after on his third day since a proper shave. So too, Garrick had a daydreamy grin, whereas Onyx usually wore friendly-but-firm smile. Then again, Onyx thought, Jade was certainly fond of chiding him for his 'dreamy, faraway' gaze. His fingers had been trained on the sword and bow; Garrick's on the quill and harp.   
  
Jaheira coughed deliberately, snapping Onyx's mind back. "Take us to this Silke," she stated, "And let us hear more. I can't say I approve of a performer who stands up their clients on a whim; but being physically threatened and hunted as hardly just recourse for such a petty thing."   
  
"I think you've made a good decision," Garrick smiled clumsily, "She's around front of the Red Sheaf Inn." He waved for them to follow, and they did, Onyx, Jaheira, Khald, and Viconia marching along while Imoen and Garrick skipped ahead. Viconia snickered, noticing the similarity of their mannerisms.   
  
The reached the front of the Red Sheaf, in one of the town's busiest streets, and Garrick pointed out a black-hooded woman. He waved goofily, and she threw back her hood to reveal the face of a moderately pretty woman, probably in her late thirties, who wore a bit too much makeup, and had her blonde hair tied up in a younger girl's fashion that perhaps she was hoping would influence guesses regarding her age. The cleavage jammed up and together by her sparing tunic was likely designed for similar effect.   
  
"Hello there," she giggled and winked at Onyx, "I am Silke, thespain extraordinaire." Her chardonnay-fragranced voice, like her hair and heavily made-up face, was in quite-less-than-perfect imitation of a girl half of age.   
  
_Well, _Onyx thought, _No one ever said thespians were burdened with the sterotpye of over-modesty. _  
  
Silke looked him up and down and continued in her sultry alto, "I see my Garrick has been rather busy. I assume he's explained what your duties are. You must simply dispose of the ruffians when they come to threaten me. They shouldn't be too hard to deal with, but I would advise you to strike fast. Whatever you do, don't speak with them. One of them is a mage whose mystic words can sway even the most wise of men." She spoke these words overdramatically and with an air of mystery, as if she were upon a stage, as if the mystic she spoke of were Azuth's avatar itself.   
  
"Likely," Onyx smiled neutrally, "But we'll hear them state their intent before we act."   
  
"Would another 100 tempt you?" Silke smiled, and pursed her thick lips awaiting an answer.   
  
"Couldn't hurt," Onyx shrugged.   
  
"400 it is," Silke giggled, then let out a dramatic gasp of fright as she turned. "Ah, here they are now!"   
  
Three rogues approached in glaringly bright red, green, and yellow hooded suits, looking more like clowns that thugs or thieves. "Feldepost's thugs!" Silke squealed, and backed up. "Strike when I tell you to!" Onyx exchanged bemused glanced with Viconia; these three didn't exactly look like a brute squad. _Then again, neither have my bumbling would-be assassins. _  
  
"Greetings Silke!" the red-cowled one called obsequeously. "We're here as you've asked, and we have the.."   
  
"Don't try to threaten me!" Silke screamed, hurriedly interrupting him, and waved her hands in frenzied arcs. "I won't be easy prey for you to beat on! I've brought friends!"   
  
"What are you talking about?" the red-cowled man scratched his head. "It's me, Faltis! We're here with the gems that..."   
  
"Shut up!" Silke snarled at them, overemphasizing her retreating steps behind the party. "There'll be no weaseling out of this one. STRIKE THEM!" she slapped Onyx's armored shoulder and pointed at Faltis and his friends. "Kill them all!"   
  
"Stop this madness, we won't murder these obviously innocent men," scoffed Onyx. "They're obviously not who you claimed." Faltis and his companions breathed a huge sigh of relief as the armored gang of adventurers took their hands from their hilts and the leather-clad girl lowered her bow.   
  
"Our deal is off!" Silke pouted. "In any case, you're probably too cowardly to be any good in a fight. I'll deal with them myself, after I deal with you!" She waved her ruby fingernails and lips in some spell, but a twang sounded, and an arrow sped into the upper chest she so proudly displayed.   
  
"Meanie," Imoen sniffled and lowered her bow as Silke collapsed, her death absent of the fanfare and melodrama she had so oozed in life.   
  
"Attacking an entire party by herself?" Jaheira arched a thin eyebrow.   
  
"Well, Silke'd been hittin' the bottle pretty hard lately," Garrick shrugged.   
  
"Uh...thanks," Faltis grinned and tossed a few gems, which Imoen caught eagerly, "These were for Silke, but I guess they're technically owed to you now. Uh, good day, and thanks for like, not killing us and stuff."   
  
"Anytime," Onyx remarked dryly. Faltis and his men quietly slunk away - as well as one can wearing brightly colored cowls in broad daylight, anyway.   
  
Viconia studied them, frowning, then looked at Imoen in her bright-purple leathers. "Is it common for surface rogues to dress so loudly?" she asked Onyx with both heavy sarcasm and honest curiosity.   
  
"Silke's dead!" Garrick shouted, amazed, as if just now realizing this.   
  
"I'm sorry about your mistress, Garrick," Onyx said grimly, "But we really had no..."   
  
"I guess she had it coming;" Garrick laughed and swung his hand, "you can't be evil like her and expect to get away with it."   
  
"Gosh, sounds like you two were pretty close," Jaheira rolled her eyes.   
  
_Wow, _Onyx thought, _He sounds more like a sterotypical paladin than I do! Then again, that's how actors often portay knights... _  
  
"That's...odd," Viconia whispered to Onyx, "In the Underdark, death of one's employer, superior, or mistress is often politically beneficial, but not greeted so j- what's that word you used earlier?"   
  
"Jovially?" Onyx asked while Imoen started rifling through Silke's crumpled form, finding a potion, an enchanted quarterstaff which she tossed to Jaheira, causing the druid to smile at the thief for the very first time, and a coin pouch with their 400 gold.   
  
"Woohoo! Thanks, Silke! Nice doin' business with ya!" Imoen giggled under her breath.   
  
"Ah yes...jovially," Viconia smiled, "Such a strange word - and concept - you surfacers have come up with."   
  
"More where that came from," Onyx chuckled. "Actually, after what you told me about your homeland earlier, I was wondering, in the Underdark, what exactly do people do for, you know, recreation?"   
  
"Recreation?" Viconia looked confused. "To create something again?"   
  
"Common is rarely that logical," Onyx laughed, "Recreation is something you do just for fun."   
  
"Fun?"   
  
"How about 'pleasure'?"   
  
"Ahhh...." Viconia grinned, "Well..."   
  
"I'm out of a job now!" Garrick screamed while looking over Silke. He looked ever-so-slightly less upbeat now.   
  
"This lad is not the quickest, is he?" Jaheira groaned to her husband.   
  
Oblivious, the bard pawed Onyx on the shoulder. "Would it be too much to ask if I could join up with you?" He looked hopefully at the party. Khalid grinned nervously, looking at Jaheira, who like Viconia groaned, while Imoen giggled, and Onyx thought carefully.   
  
"Well," Onyx began, "You should know that we're headed south to investigate the Nashkel mines. Could be dangerous. How are you with weapons or magic or such?"   
  
"Real adventurers!" Garrick exclaimed, lighting up like a kid getting a birthday present. "Wow! A real adventure! What a tale this'll make, why...ah yes, well, actually I am quite decent with both weapons and magic. A jack-of-all-trades! I'm a debonair dueler, a fearsome fencer," Garrick shadow-dueled, " a crack shot with a crossbow," he took aim at nothing with a launcher of air, "And a master of arcane magic!" He waved his fingers spookily.   
  
Imoen was giggling hysterically, but Onyx arched an eyebrow at the bard.   
  
"...and an expert storyteller, it seems," Jaheira groaned.   
  
"Why yes," Garrick grinned, "I'm an actor and minstrel!"   
  
The party snickered. Onyx glanced at Jaheira, whose face lacked either enthusiasm or protest, and to Garrick rejoined, "Welcome to the group." _I need all the help I can get. And if this goofball is an assassin, then I really am Robin Locksley. _  
  
"This will be the beginning of an epic tale, I'm sure of it!" Garrick waved his finger in the air. "Lead on, noble knight, to dangers and glories 'pon the road ahead!"   
  
"The surface keeps getting weirder and weirder.." Viconia muttered as they walked on, six strong.


	15. InnSanity

**15. Innsanity **  
  
"I'm gettin' a little sleepy!" Imoen yawned, and playfully rested her head for one second on Onyx's shoulder as they walked.   
  
Looking for a place to spend the night, the party marched into the Jovial Juggler. The first sight to greet them was a blonde armored man hobbling up to them. He carried a spear, tall like himself, but seemed to use more as a crutch than a weapon.   
  
"Hark there, fellow paladin!" He called to Onyx. "I am Sir Bjornin. And you?"   
  
_My tabard's under my armor, how'd he... _he then noticed, almost _knowing _more than seeing, as if aware that it were his brain highlighting what his eyes actually saw, this Bjornin's aura. _Oh yeah, we recognize each other. Well, at least he's not an assassin...I think. Not that Ajantis was much better. Hey, how come he didn't seem to... _  
  
"His name is Robin Locksley, and I am Jaheira," the druid stepped forward and answered, while her eyes scanned the room, obviously looking for assassins that might still recognize her charge by face alone.   
  
_Nice one, Jaheira. _  
  
"You know, brother in arms," Bjornin grinned, showing off teeth that were quite pearly, perhaps artificially so, "There's a band of ogres fortified southwest of here. They did a real number on me," he lifted his leg awkwardly, as if his limp weren't already obvious. "I shall have to heal for awhile..."   
  
_Us paladins can heal ourselves. It shouldn't take **that **long...? _Onyx wondered.   
  
"...But if _you _would be so noble as to give them a taste of justice, it'd do me proud, fellow knight."   
  
Jaheira and Onyx exchanged glances that said much the same thing.   
  
"So..." Onyx began, "You said 'fortified'."   
  
"Yes," Bjornin smiled, "They should still be there."   
  
"So then they're not, say, assaulting Beregost, they're just...fortified."   
  
"Precisely," the blonde paladin nodded, visibly impatient, "And a threat to anyone who goes there."   
  
Another skeptical glance between Onyx and Jaheira. Her smile told him that she preferred to let him handle this, so he did. "Sort of like we'd be a threat if, say, the ogres came to town."   
  
Bjornin gasped. "Why yes! They could attack at any moment! Excellent thinking, you are truly vigilant, my brother! Make haste, make haste!"   
  
"That, eh, not quite what I meant," Onyx gritted his teeth. "I mean, anyone 'could' attack after all. My point was, isn't where they're 'fortified' sorta like their, uh, home?"   
  
"Exactly! Slay the beast in its lair!" Bjornin nodded eagerly.   
  
"So were they, uh, attacking anyone?"   
  
"Of course!" Bjornin screeched impatiently, gesturing down at his leg. "I quested to their fortification, challenged them to a duel to the death, and they had at me!"   
  
"Anyone else?"   
  
"Hmmm...probably. They are ogres, after all."   
  
Onyx sighed.   
  
Jaheira glanced at her charge. "You are wise, my child, but you are...too kind and patient with him." She then directed a stern, very typically Jaheiran, gaze at the blonde paladin, and she seemed to grow while he shrank until she was much taller than he. "Listen, you idiot! That is the ogres' _home! _Just like Beregost is your _home! _As far as we know, they weren't attacking anyone until _you _attacked _them! _And now thanks to you, they'll probably attack the next people who do happen to come by! Thank you very much for doing everything in your meager power to engineer strife of bloodshed, noble paladin!"   
  
Bjornin gasped and hobbled back from the angry druid gripping the enchanted quarterstaff, and moved his mouth speechlessly for a moment, as if chewing something quite bitter, then worked up the courage to shout, "Foul witch! You should be burned at-.."   
  
" _Don't _," Onyx hissed, "Threaten my friend. Or call her a witch." Jaheira snickered and grinned. She was having trouble deciding whether it was more enjoyable to tell people off herself or watch her charge do it. Both, she decided.   
  
Bjornin screamed like a girl, fell off his spear, and crashed onto the ground in his platemail, stuttering. "S-she's enchanted you! It is as I feared!"   
  
Khalid smiled, looking unusually calm. "Well, she's enchanted me."   
  
Jaheira smiled lovingly at her husband while Onyx snickered, and Bjornon really freaked out. "Heeelp!! I'm injured! I can't be expected to fight them! Ah!" Dragging his precious spear, he crawled away from them, over the dirty, putrid floor of the Juggler, with a complete lack of dignity that the other patrons found extremely laugh-worthy.   
  
"Pathetic," Viconia chuckled.   
  
"Ooookay..." Imoen giggled.   
  
The party broke out in laughter, but no sooner had the lame blonde paladin dragged himself around a corner into a hallway, than a rather high-strung skinny man in blue sprang up from a table, and, with his eyes dancing wildly, stared at Onyx and began babbling, "Wow! H-hey...names' Oogie Wisham. That Bjornin...glad you took care of him! I can feel his eyes looking at me. He's a paladin, you know. They ain't right in the head." He tapped his head.   
  
"And you are?" Viconia snickered.   
  
"They..." 'Oogie' continued obliviously, "They just look at you and you've been judged. What right do they have to do that?"   
  
Onyx calmly extracated himself from the man's grasp. "Well, it's just looking."   
  
Jaheira scowled at her charge. "So's a diviner using a cantrip to look under a lady's clothes, child. Not very polite, is it?"   
  
"Point taken, J," Onyx admitted. Jaheira nodded and smiled, but the one-letter nickname brought a scowl, which Onyx smiled at. _You call me child, I call you J. Let's see how long it takes. This'll be fun. _  
  
Meanwhile, outside of Onyx's thoughts, Oogie was nervously babbling, "Recent evidence suggests that a barrel full of monkeys is not half as fun as previously claimed! In fact, it's terrifying!!"   
  
Onyx sighed. _Why is everyone who approaches me when I walk into an inn or down the street either (1) a lunatic/fanatic, (2) an assassin, (3) someone who needs a small quest done for them (4) someone who wants to join my party, or (5) some combination of the above? Usually #1 coupled with one of the others...Is the whole world outside Candlekeep like this, or am I a loony magnet? _  
  
Onyx turned towards Oogie and gave him a devilish grin. "I'm a paladin too. Boo!"   
  
Oogie's eyes bulged into saucers. "Aieeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!" he spun on a dime and scrambled across the room, disappearing up a stairwell. "The paladins! They're watching meeeeee..."   
  
"Now the whole tavern is watching you," Onyx chuckled.   
  
"Lucky stiff," Garrick sighed, "I can never get them to, even when I try."   
  
  
----------------   
  
  
Foul, foul air assaulted the party as they stepped through the threshold of Feldepost's Inn, upon it the aromas of multiple beverage and bodily fluid types.   
  
_And this is the **nice **inn in Beregost? _Onyx wondered skeptically as two particularly drowned patrons at the nearest table leered at him.   
  
"'Ere URP now!" called one of them, a stocky brown-haired local. "I don't like your type in here!"   
  
"Heh," chuckled his blonde and slightly leaner, but no cleaner, friend, "You tell 'em, Marl."   
  
_Just what exactly **is **my type? _Onyx wondered aloud as 'Marl' managed to stand, heavily leaning on the table and burping.   
  
"Hey!" he cried, waving one arm accusing the party, "I told ya to get lost! Ain't no room here for ye trouble makin' strangers."   
  
Jaheira stepped abreast of Onyx and declared, " _We're _not making the trouble."   
  
After processing this for a second, Marl finally answered Onyx's first mental question by declaring, "I'm sick of you freakish adventurers going out, consorting with gods know what, and dragging your trouble back into my home town! What do you say to that?"   
  
Onyx calmly answered, "Well, good sir, we tend to solve more trouble than we cause."   
  
"Usually!" Imoen giggled, peeking around his arm. _Gee, thanks Immy. _  
  
"Ohhhhhhhh," Marl drew himself up, apparently deciding he could now stand without an arm on the table, and Onyx moving his arm protectively over Imoen. "You HIC think it's funny, do you!" You mess up the local economy with your treasure..." Marl pretended to pat his pockets as if they were much fuller than they were.   
  
"Treasure'd do more for the economy in an abandoned dungeon?" Onyx asked with calm sarcasm.   
  
"If you're worried about poverty, don't drink yourself into it," Jaheira smirked.   
  
"...You upset the balance of nature..." he drunkenly tried to point out the nearest window.   
  
"We fight _for _the balance of nature," Jaheira hissed through gritted teeth, and only Khalid's hand reaching for hers kept her from ripping out the man's throat. "Your belch might unbalance it," she snarled under her breath.   
  
"...You flash your magic around..." Marl began to wave his arms in an unusually bad imitation of spellcasting.   
  
Onyx, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Viconia, and Garrick all exchanged glances that read 'So?'   
  
"...and..." Marl began to stagger up to Onyx, "...because of it maybe somebody's son thinks it's fun and goes out and gets himself killed! It'd a bad example and somebody ought to kick your ass for it!"   
  
"This isn't really a hypothetical, is it?" Onyx arched an eyebrow.   
  
Marl would have stood right in Onyx's face, but the height difference put him closer to the breast of the young paladin, who made a point of looking _down _at the overweight drunkard impassively.   
  
_KILL HIM!!!! _  
  
Onyx took a deep breath, which unfortunately meant inhaling Marl's, but nevertheless it calmed him, though it nearly gagged him too. "Now," he began as if placating to an angry child, "Everyone chooses their own path. I'll not be held accountable for his. Sorry."   
  
Marl didn't seem satisfied. "He was a good boy...til _your _kind," he stuck his index finger into Onyx's splint-mailed chest, "...came through town! Filled 'is head with nonsense, they did, and because of it he's...he's dead! Now why shoudn't I take THAT out on your hide?!"   
  
"He might have gone anyway," Onyx shrugged, "It's a calling you're born with. Nobody gives it to you." _Except in my case. **I **was 'given' the adventuring life by a very large man with spiky armor and glowing eyes. _  
  
Jaheira frowned. Her charge was, of course, right in _more _ways than he new.   
  
"'Tain't true!" Mar cried, his shoulders slumping, and Onyx decided he had just past the drunkard's threshold from 'being more likely to try to fight me' to 'being more likely to try to cry on me.' "He was going to take over the farm and settle down!" Marl wailed. "Maybe apprentice with Thunderhammer during the winter! He never wanted to adventure!"   
  
Marl blew his nose, fortunately on his own sleeve and not Onyx's chest, and his blonde friend stood and gripped his shoulders, 'cooing' in the best soothing voice a drunk man can, "That was what _you _wanted, Marl! Fun's fun, but yer blaming these folk fer what couldn' tbe helped! That boy was a firebrand if ever there was..."   
  
"No, Dunkin!" Marl cried in denial as 'Dunkin' sat him back down. "He was settling down! He wanted...he wanted..." Marl buried his face in the grungy tableclothing and burped.   
  
_At least this time only he has to breathe it himself. _Onyx thought.   
  
"That new plow ye bought last year," Dunkin leaned low over Marl and patted his shoulder, "He got the gold by helpin' clear kobolds near Ulgoth's Beard! He wanted to make a difference, make the Realms a bit safer, just like these folks most likely."   
  
_Buying a plow. There's adventuring destroying the economy for you, _Onyx thought, but smiled. "That's right, Marl," he said in a kind voice. Earning a glare from Jaheira, he strode forward and sat down with the two men, joining Dunkin in looking down at Marl. "We're trying to look into this confounded iron shortage. You know, I actually used to hunt kobolds myself up north too." _Let's not mention the city, lest more assassins be patronizing this fine establishment. _  
  
"By Chauntea!" Marl sobbed, still pressing his face into the tablecloth and blowing his nose into it. "Why couldn't he just stay home!?" He trailed off sobbing and blew his nose again.   
  
_I wonder if he does this a lot. Is that how the tablecloth got so dirty? _Onyx wondered, but patted Marl on the shoulder and sighed, "You know, the Realms call, and you go. He sounds a fine lad taken too son, but...doing what he was meant."   
  
Marl bawled, and Dunkin turned to face Onyx, and chuckled, "Well, this is about the calmest I've seen him in a week. You might as well get on, Marl ain't known for his steady moods."   
  
_Gladly. _  
  
  
--------------   
  
  
"Ar! Ye be at the end of yer rope, I'll wager! Ain't nothing personal', understand, but I'm afraid your time on this 'ere ball of mud's just 'bout done! Like me coz Korgo always said, a price's a price, head's ha head, and whenever the two'll meet, there's ol' Karlat makin' his livin'. Har har!"   
  
_Why, why, why, are my assassins so garrulous and theatrical? I think I've just figured out who's trying to kill me - The Sword Coast Bards' Guild. Yes, it must be them. _  
  
So thought Onyx as this Karlat fellow, a stereotypical enough dwarven mercenary - _Axe, check. Beer-soaked beard, check. Sailor's tongue, check. Bloodlust, check. _- accosted him in the anteroom of the Red Sheaf.   
  
_And why do they always insist on attacking in groups of one? _  
  
Onyx found himself at an immediate disadvantage, too close to effectively draw his longsword while his opponent hefted a battleaxe over his own head, and destined for his opponent's. The paladin lifted his shieldarm, planting his right leg back to both brace for the blow and give himself more room. Khalid aside him drew his blade, and no sooner had the dwarf's axe crashed into and even cleft Onyx's shield than the half-elf plunged the tip of his blade deep into Karlat's unarmored neck, which was at so convenient a height, and the dwarf stumbled backwards, gurgled, and fell over.   
  
"Thanks Khalid," Onyx smiled weakly, tossing aside the remaining half os his shield and massaging his left wrist.   
  
"Ya okay, Ony?" Imoen asked with a worried face that only three days ago she had scarcely ever worn.   
  
Jaheira inspected the wrist briefly, and gave her charge a look that offered healing, but he politely declined with a head shake. "Thanks, I'll need to buy a new shield come morning, but I'm fine."   
  
"Ooo," Imoen peered at the note she found while looting Karlat's body. "Another bounty notice. You're up to 350, Ony." She looked up at her friend, her face sad.   
  
The paladin sighed, his heart heavy indeed. "Let's try the Burning Wizard. Maybe there aren't any bloodthirsty axe-murderers there."   
  
  
---------------   
  
  
Onyx nearly tripped over a cowled halfling as he crossed the threshold of the Burning Wizard, companions in tow.   
  
"Oooh, pardon me sir!" the cloaked hobbit cried, brushing himself off. "Zhurlong's the name. You invest in some boots of stealth, you set up shop in the badlands to the south of Beregost and then WHAM...Along comes a tribe of hobgoblins and they tear the boots from right off your feet! Damnblasted bullies is what they are and I'll pay 100 gold to whoever can get them to back me, I will...Oh, look! It's Drizzt D'Urden!"   
  
_I think I see where this is going. Let's humor him. _  
  
"Oh wow!!!!!" Onyx cried excitedly, and turned his head in the direction Zhurlong was pointing. The halfling immediately made a grab at the paladin's belt, but soon found himself levitated into the air, held by the scruff of his neck, and came face to face with the smiling paladin who'd stood double his height a few moments ago.   
  
"Gulp..." Zhurlong looked down, his feet wiggling four feet off the floor. "Please don't hurt me!! I, uh, noticed a piece of lint on your armor and I was just brushing it off! It's such nice armor!" As the would-be pickpocket shook in terror, hanging from his cowl in the tall man's grasp, he quivered so badly that gold pieces began raining down out of his many pockets, creating a tiny glitter heap on the floor.   
  
The hobbit looked away from the man to find a very angry half-elven woman glaring at him. "You dropped something," she said.   
  
"Errr," Zhurlong tittered nervously, "I don't need it! Keep it! Have a drink! Make a donation!"   
  
"Hmm," Onyx thought as he set down the halfling, who scurried off in terror, "Garrick, didn't you say there was a temple of Lathander just east of town." The bard nodded. "High time I paid it a visit..." .   
  
Imoen yawned.   
  
"...in the morning."   
  
"But all of these inns are full of weirdos," Imoen pouted. "Where should we stay?"   
  
Garrick cocked his head, and lit up. "There's always Silke's place. I call first dibs on a bubble bath and the waterbed! It's quite luxurious, actually. After all, I don't guess she'll be using it."   
  
Onyx, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, and Viconia all glared at the bard, and in unison shouted, "Well why didn't you say so in the first place!?"


	16. Follow the Red Pony

**16. Follow the Red Pony **  
  
_"One potion makes you stronger,   
And one potion makes you know all,   
And the three the wizard gave you,   
Heal you but hardly at all,   
Go ask Janice,   
As her enemies fall..." _  
  
One long-haired bard's oily lamentations hung in the air, and with it mind-bending fumes wafted out the doors of the large carnival tent and into the night sky, but Kagain and Montaron would have none of it. They sat upon rocks outside the tent, clutching tobacco pouches and puffing their pipes.   
  
"Fool waste o' gold," Kagain griped, looking sidelong at the tent-flaps.   
  
Within the tent were assorted fair-goers, mostly nigh-unconscious and flopped limply over pillows. Among them was Xzar, sitting in a cross-legged lotus position, appropriately enough, hands uncurled on his knees, eyes closed.   
  
"O great spirits of the gibbering monkey horde," the necromancer chanted, those around him lost in their own worlds, "Grant us the glittering revelations of the labyrinth of dust and bone, where the slime people circle endlessly and the grinning three-eyed skull looks down upon us all!! Ouuuuuuummmm...."   
  
Jade sat facing him a few pillows away, sprinkling a small quantity of black lotus onto a roll of paper and furling it. She held it up between two fingers, and Xzar popped open his wild green eyes, waved his hand fluidly, and a phosphourous smell tinged the air as Jade's joint lit.   
  
"...Ooouuumm....What? Tell her to follow the white rabbit? RABBIT!? Oh no! Terrible wisdom, o horror like thousands of vampiric gibbons, to seek out one rabbit! No, Queen of Organs, I don't care if it worked for **her **! No, mirrors don't make anything better, don't you see? What did you call me? How rude...I don't wear a hat!"   
  
The guitar-strumming bard looked up and smirked.   
  
_"And if you go chasing rabbits,   
But you don't know why at all,   
Tell 'em a tattooed raving necromancer,   
Has given you the call,   
Call Janice,   
As her enemies fall!" _  
  
The young woman flipped her scarlet hair back and took a long drag, exhaled, and passed the joint to Branwen, who sat next to her and reluctantly took the joint between two fingers. The priestess held it up, appraising the foreign object, and when Jade smiled and nodded, pinched the unlit end between her lips and inhaled. Jade giggled as the woman grimaced, hacked, and hastily shoved it back at her.   
  
"Hedonistic and foul," Branwen managed between coughs, holding up an open palm after Jade took a drag and offered it back.   
  
"You get to like it," Jade smiled innocently.   
  
"I don't _want _to get to like it," Branwen glared.   
  
"Hmmp," Jade pouted. "But isn't it neat, how no one here gives X the typical weird glances?" She took several more drags, closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly at the tent ceiling, while Branwen looked on, vaguely disapproving but curious. Jade looked across at Xzar again, her emerald eyes now glazed and unfocused.   
  
"He remembered," the girl mumbled, and smiled.   
  
"Hmm?" Branwen frowned.   
  
Jade rambled out her all-too-brief childhood proper, with her brother and best friend as well as the future wizard, the following teen years, which centered around a training and discipline Branwen heartily approved of, and the many strange events of the past few days, and dwelled upon her strange dreams the night before - her father, the voice, the feathered lady, and the samesaid necromancer. Branwen silently wondered whether they had truly been so strange, or it was merely her new ally's affected state, but heeded her words. At length, Jade procured from her belt a small chesspiece, a knight of solid ruby. Branwen arched a blonde eyebrow.   
  
"This morning," Jade sighed, watching the light glitter off the object. "I woke up, and Monty had laid out a bunch of gems and stuff he found overnight. Like my new sword. This caught my eye too," She exhaled, and fell back on the pillows.   
  
_"When men on the chessboard,   
Are poised to show you where to go,   
And you've just had some kind of flower,   
And your mind is swirling, go...   
Go ask Janice...   
I think she'll know..." _  
  
Branwen caught the chesspiece as it slipped from Jade's hand, and studied it closely. "By Tempus's Shield!"   
  
"What?" Jade raised an eyelid lazily.   
  
"This can only be an omen from the Red Knight!"   
  
"Night looks black to me..." Jade muttered. "Is it like a blue moon?"   
  
Branwen scowled. "The Lady of Strategy! I thought you said you grew up in an enormous library?"   
  
Jade flubbed her lips unenthusiastically.   
  
"She is all but the daughter of my lord Tempus, and the goddess of planning and strategy."   
  
"Not bad," Jade lifted her eyelid further.   
  
"It is said that her importance has grown since the Time of Troubles, perhaps owing to that great shift of power, or the increasingly complex nature of war. She is logical and calm, but not without compassion or humor."   
  
"You sound like you know her," Jade giggled.   
  
Branwen was not amused. "It is _you _she has touched, Jade."   
  
"Hocus-pocus," Jade snorted. "Besides, Monty found it. I'll bet _he _would like to be 'touched' by her."   
  
The priestess crossed her arms. "Have you not told me that but too days ago you were dragged from your home, your father slain, you and your brother separated, and now you are nearly broke, running for your life from an unknown force, for unknown reasons, and on the morrow leading us into a mine which exports faulty iron but great rumors of danger?"   
  
"Shut up!" Jade snarled, her pretty, round face twisting in angular anger. "What's your point? I'll survive! I'll succeed! I'll have revenge!"   
  
"I only meant," Branwen sighed, "You are at war, and would do well to have strategy on your side, and to pay your respects to the Lady."   
  
"Religion is my brother's drug," Jade snorted.   
  
Branwen looked down at the joint between her new friend's fingertips. She looked back pointedly into her green eyes, needing to say nothing. Jade angrily smoldered it between her fingertips and tossed it away.   
  
"You said he was a paladin?" Branwen asked.   
  
"Yep," Jade rolled her eyes. "Good ol' wanna-be knight in shining armor." She clasped her hands together and mock-swooned.   
  
"They say the Red Knight and Torm are...close," Branwen smirked.   
  
"Friggin' deities..."   
  
"Exactly..."   
  
"Ahh!" Jade shook her head. "That's not that I meant!" She glared at Branwen. "Besides, my _brother _worships Lathander."   
  
Branwen cocked her head and looked up, musing. "Respectable. Frivilous, but respectable." She thought for a second more. "The Lady's greatest enmity lies, as is not uncommon, with Cyric, whom she regards as a traitor, a liar, and," the priestess laughed, "an incompetent planner whose designs become fiascos."   
  
"Oh mommy..." Xzar's voice wafted out of its low babblings, "...The good little flesh puppets go nappy-nappy-sleepy-sleepy-soon."   
  
Jade glanced at the necromancer with a smile, and Branwen held the ruby knight out to her. "Keep this close, and don't let that stingy dwarf tell you to pawn it off. In fact..." Branwen withdrew her hand, moved her other under the collar of her tunic, and pulled over it a platinum necklace. Unfastening the chain, she slid one end under the horse's cheeks, the snout's dip clasping the chain against the chin. Rising to kneel behind Jade, she slipped it around the girl's head and fastened it over the nape of her neck.   
  
"Queen-Knight to Queen-Cleric-Three," Xzar peered intently at Jade's new chain and pendant. "Always a good early move. And pretty, mommy. Matches your lips and hair."   
  
Kagain made the predicted financial suggestion with the trio rejoined him and Montaron outside the tent, and the halfling mumbled a safely-under-his-breath comment about the new necklace's tunic-recontouring properties. The five pitched tents a 'safe' distance from the carnival, and set to prayers, studies, or merely rest for the next's days goal.   
  
_"When reason is in chaos,   
And the others have fallen dead,   
And the White Knight is in the mirror,   
And the Black-Heart Queen's 'off with her head!'   
Remember what the halfling said:   
'Free your head   
Free your head   
Free your head'"_


	17. Mirror, Mirror

Not necessity, not desire --no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything --health, food, a place to live, entertainment --they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.   
  
-Nietzsche   
  
  
**17. Mirror, Mirror... **  
  
The Fists at the end of Wyrm's Crossing did not attempt to halt the approaching mounted figures for the customary questioning of all entering the Gate.   
  
Rather, they bolted for their guardhouses and cowered in shadows and fear.   
  
The four hooves of the elephantine black warhorse shook the very timbers of the bridge. Few steeds could have borne what it did: a single figure, nearly the size of an ogre, utterly mailed in finely interlocking dark plates, numerous spikes thrusting out from the bracers, shoulderplates, and his helmet, out of which blazed two golden eyes.   
  
Alongside this mounted apparation of the hells, rode a figure imposing but tiny by comparison. A lean brown steed, and atop it an armored yet still slender woman, her features under a hood.   
  
At the bridge's end, the first figure cursed down at a bespectacled gnome who was nearly trampled as the horses flanked and flew past it. On through the gates they rode, and deep into the city, towards an imposing gabled tower that loomed over the low, pre-industrial skyline of Baldur's Gate.   
  
The golden-eyed warrior rode on, a greatsword slung over his back and a crossbow at his belt, the mounted woman at pace beside, her black cape billowing behind, her dark eyes narrow and focus, and his glowing gaze taking in the city that whipped by as if he owned it. It was not so far from the truth.   
  
They rode past a square where were stacked several barrels; atop one stood another gnomd, raving in a cartoonish voice, one hand gripping a pipe and the other holding aloft an emblem of a jawless skull wreathed in purple flame.   
  
The gnome and the huge warrior locked eyes for one moment, and shared a gaze of purest enmity. They knew.   
  
The man and the woman rode on, and reached the base of the gabled tower, and dismounted, their mounts taken by a frightened sentry at the building's gates.   
  
Up they climbed through the floors of the building, each of cold, austere marble, a faint bluish light illuminating the many elegant tapestries and statues that served only to make the halls more aloof, clinical, and foreboding. The pair sequested themselves in a room on the top floor; a bedroom spacious and elegant like the rest of the building. The great man in his dark, spiky armor looked thoroughly out of place in quarters that were in the end ordinary in their luxury.   
  
Off came his helmet to reveal again his golden eyes, and dark, sturdy facial features. A broad nose, a black goatee, and a bald domed head.   
  
Back flew her hood to reveal a dainty but worn copper face; slanted eyes, thin pursed lips, and a dark braid of hair that fell in a ponytail almost to the waist.   
  
The man snapped his gauntlets, spiked bracers, and many fastenings of the torso of his armor. The chest split open, and like a molting ankheg he pulled it off to reveal a black tunic that did little to conceal the contours of superhuman upper body musculature.   
  
The woman quietly undid and slipped out of her light field plate, her lithe but muscled frame underneath swathed in silk.   
  
The man unhinged and stepped out of his great boots, then fell back into a chair to slide off the metallic scabbards his bulging legs had been uncased in. The woman freed herself of her armor leggings again in a strange stealthy manner that was unnervingly quiet for someone supposedly platemailed. Her legs beneath were thin, but the thigh and calf muscles bulged underneath the silk fighting suit as she glided across the floor toward the man who had shed his demonic exoskeleton.   
  
She sprang from the carpet, into the air like an assassin at the huge warrior's throat, but placed there her lips and no stiletto while her legs clamped around the man's waist, the closest she desired to come to landing. The man wrapped his long arms around her, nearly still able to hug himself, and chuckled. The woman's head flipped up, her serpentine ponytail flying through the air behind her head, and the man's goatee-rimmed mouth clasped over hers. The pair kissed and squeezed with a ferocity that belied too many hours of uninterrupted riding.   
  
Lightning boomed outside. Still they kissed, and it boomed closer. They tore at one another's outfits, and it nearly struck the building. The woman's silk fighting suit dropped silently onto the floor, and a bolt of lightning cracked against the side of the tower. The window rattled, the sky flashed, and static filled the room.   
  
The great warrior snarled in anger, and set the woman back on her feet. He pulled his tunic back down over his sculpted torso, and without a word, only smacking one fist into the other palm, he barged out of the room, and marched down silent hallways across the floor of the building, watching through occasional windows as the thunder booming elsewhere in the city, his footsteps booming likewise across the empty halls.   
  
The door he made for opened before he could touch it, and as he strode through, closed behind him without assistance. The sides of this chamber were cluttered with all matter of equipment-laden table and book-crammed shelves, but one clear aisle led down the center. At the opposite end of the room was a great many-paned bay window, its glass surfaces interlocking into a convex angular bubble that looked out onto the dark city. Before this vantage point stood one chair. It was all of cold steel, and one shaft thrust from its seat to the ground. It faced away now, but a black rode draped down from the seat to the floor. From everywhere and nowhere in the arcane laboratory came a sourceless and ominous chanting, the deep voices of ancient and evil men.   
  
The chair swiveled around, away from the windows and toward the man. In it sat a thin figure, swathed in a black cloak, a pale and gaunt old face peering out from under the hood.   
  
"Destiny waits for no man," the figure hissed.   
  
"I am...more than a man," the warrior growled.   
  
"Soon. Or if you behave like this, perhaps never."   
  
"No - it is as you say. Destiny. I am chosen."   
  
"Then they are no more?"   
  
"Carbos and Shank failed within the keep..."   
  
"...but of course. All inept assassins know how kill is the element of surprise."   
  
"We found them outside. They fled in fear."   
  
"Magical..." the wizard nodded, and clasped his hands.   
  
The warrior frowned skeptically. "How did you know?"   
  
"Because Gorion would not have raised them any other way."   
  
"He is no more."   
  
"Mmm..." the cowled figure took a deep breath, and slumped further back in his chair. His gaze became unfocused, and he spoke to the air. "...after all these years, old friend. I told you it would come to something like this. And I knew it would be you..." he focused on the warrior again. "I had..almost wished to see him one last time. But we are fighting, aren't we? As fathers should."   
  
The wizard's analytic gaze softened for a moment, but then grew taut again, and he continued.   
  
"But alas, theatrics are sentimentality are not a luxury we have. Indeed, I find more and more of late I must do the grounding for two," his eyes narrowed at the large man. "Perhaps three. Interesting choice of spell, your conc-...sort's. How fortunate it proved for your prey. Keep her on a short leash."   
  
"I advise you to refrain from...zoological terminology with her."   
  
"Oh really? The way you yourself have been acting, I find it most appropriate."   
  
"What is your point, _old _man?"   
  
"Some needs must be fulfilled, but love...love blinds. She may not see eye to eye with us, so keep yours on her."   
  
"She is loyal. She is...you would not understand."   
  
"No, I would not. But if it's what maintains your grasp on reality, so be it."   
  
The warrior growled in frustration, and shifted his weight. The wizard spoke again, leaning forward to peer at the warrior. "Tell me...what did you feel, under the shadow of Candlekeep again?"   
  
The warrior frowned. "I do not understand."   
  
The wizard craned furhter forward. "Oh, but you do. What about the time you were within its walls?" His head tilted suggestively.   
  
The warrior took a step backward and looked down at the floor, his brow furrowed. "I...saw them playing. Laughing. Loving. An auburn-haired girl, an orcish boy, a girl with golden curls. I didn't even realize who they were or what I felt at the time, but..."   
  
  
"...envy?"   
  
"Yes." The warrior curled his lips into a two-sided sneer, and tears welled in the corners of his eyes, and he balled his fists.   
  
The wizard gestured, and the hum of vibrating glass resonated around the laboratory. Mirrors floated forth from the shadows, facing the warrior.   
  
He looked up, and saw his reflection in the many mirrors. Some of his reflections then grew younger in the mirror, turning to his boy self clad in street rags, running through the streets, foraging and fighting.   
  
Others images shifted into fairer children, a brunette boy and a scarlet-haired girl. They jumped between mirrors, laughing and tagging each other, behind them could be seen grass and flowers and white ramparts.   
  
The wizard twisted his fingers, making the mirrors spin in a flashing vortex around the warrior, and spoke.   
  
"You slept in a gutter as he in a cradle."   
  
The warrior punched through a mirror of the cradled boy babe, and in the shards saw himself sleeping fitfully in an alley.   
  
"You scrounged for scraps as he feasted."   
  
He punched through another mirror of the boy at a table and saw himself gutter-foraging in the shards.   
  
"You ran for fear as he for fun."   
  
He punched through another mirror. A chase from a race.   
  
"You hid for survival as he for a game."   
  
Another mirror. An orcish urchin thug from the orcish school pal.   
  
"You fought for food, he for sport."   
  
And another. A knife fight from a fencing lesson.   
  
"You were beaten as he was read to."   
  
And another. Reiltar from Gorion.   
  
"You had your first kill as he his first kiss."   
  
And another. Another urchin thug from the girl with the golden curls.   
  
Now only shards were felt, abandoned by the wizard's powers and left upon the smooth floor, and the warrior looked down at his bloody knuckles, his face flushed and tearing in anger. He scrunched his face, put his thumb and forefinger beside his nose, and cried and snarled into them."...I'll show her how we did things on the streets in Sembia..."   
  
"...it bred weakness..."   
  
"...I'll show him what being beaten is..."   
  
"...it bred idealism..."   
  
"...I'll show her a garrote..."   
  
"...it bred naivette..."   
  
The warrior clasped his other fingers, sketched the skin forward, then pulled his fingers together in an unmasking gesture away from his own face. "I'll tear his face off."   
  
The wizard laughed, the echo bouncing off the panes behind him and filling the rom. "No more blood for that man!" He smiled calmly and coldly, and folded his hands again. "You wish to continue your pursuit."   
  
The warrior shook off his tears, breathing heavily and angrily, and balling his fists. "Yes."   
  
"And so you shall, but through others. Don't look at me like that. There is much to be done here; your time is far too valuable to be traipsing about the Sword Coast hunting utterly inexperienced prey. Moreover, it is not good for our public image, which still matters for a few weeks yet."   
  
"They are _mine _!" the warrior roared, slinging his fists over his head. "They shall fall by my hand, I shall spill their precious blood, and it shall be glorious!"   
  
The wizard snickered and hissed, "Are you sure you didn't miss your calling as a bard? Why, I should have taken you to see _Prince of Rogues _last month, the way you're carrying on you'd have made a better Sheriff of Yessingbeef than that Kron clown, goatee and all. And don't even get me started on the baby-faced fool who played Robin Locksley. Funny, he looked rather like your...but I digress. We wish to insure that the dark side _does _win on our stage."   
  
A hard knock sounded from the library door, followed by a womanly but unladylike curse, and the black wizard grinned. "And to that end, allow me to introduce you to some of the better bounty hunters on the Throne's retainer..."   
  
With a flick of his wrist, the door flew open. The bald warrior turned around to see a squad of four fearsome women marching in two by two. The first burly pair wore their well-greased platemail nonchalantly, the back pair were leathered and lithe.   
  
The wizard frowned, puzzled. "Where is your fifth..."   
  
"Shar-Teel seeks her fortune elsewhere," one of the plated women grunted with disdain.   
  
"Her father will not be pleased," the wizard mused.   
  
"Her father just never ever was, old _man _," the woman shouted defiantly. She then nodded to the bald warrior. "The way _his _father runs the Iron Ceiling, be grateful any of us remain!" Her companions grunted in agreement.   
  
"Enough!" the wizard snapped. "This concerns only those here. I have a premonition that antagonistic elements may soon jeopardize our operations near Nashkel. You are to reinforce that half-breed Strifeleader. Use the secret entrance, I don't want you annihilating our yipping mine-rats. If you find havoc has already been wreaked, you are to exact revenge on those responsible." He gestured, and a scroll floated off a nearby table toward the lead woman, who snapped it out of the air. "This will lead the way. Go."


	18. The Gnoll Witch Project

They fought like beasts, not men.   
  
- _The __Island__ of __Dr. Moreau_  
  
  
  
  
**18. The Gnoll Witch Project **  
  
The tracker scrunched his beady eyes, peering through the cloaking dark of the Wood of Sharp Teeth. He lifted his nose, perked his ears, and sniffed the air like a beast.   
  
He knew not what his boss or their quarry intended, but surely it wouldn't be long now. They'd been trekking west for months. Themselves starting from Thay, they'd picked up the trail leading out of Rasheman, tailed it west across Thesk, and around the northern side of the Sea of Fallen Stars. In Sembia they'd caught up to their quarry, but his boss had insisted on shadowing them, providing no reasons, but ample threats. Then through Cormyr. Finally, the western heartlands. Now the Sea of Swords was only another day or two west; he could already detect the faint salty tinge on the air, although that would still have been beyond most men.   
  
Most wouldn't be able to, but he'd always been like that. It was part of what made him such a tracker. Some said he looked to have orc-blood; he couldn't say, half of his lineage was utterly unknown to him, the other half, he only knew what he saw. His mother'd been a low-grade prostitute-slave, one of so many in Eltabbar. She hadn't offered him much of a future, but he'd been a big enough boy to bully and mug around his ghetto and help his mother make ends meet. But he was a slave of the same master as his mother, of course, the thought brought a grown man's tear even now, and eventually her profession caught up to her in a brutal rape-murder at their master's hands. He'd killed the bastard of course, but highborn red-robe the man was, and Thay being Thay, he'd had to run out of town, and he'd probably have torn clear out of Red Empire if he hadn't fallen in with a Cossack bandit gang of men, hobgoblins, gnolls, and everything in between, where he made a decent enough living plying his same mugging trade on the open road, now with real weapons in his hands and real comrades by his side. The chieftain had taught him the ways of Malar, and he'd been one of the Beastlord's rangers ever since. Probably would have made chieftain himself if the Red authorities hadn't caught up to their gang.   
  
But, maybe that'd led to a better opportunity, to this. Thay being Thay, most of the gang had been executed but the best recruited. If anyone had recognized the boyhood murderer of a Red Wizard he was, he'd be long dead, but Thay being Thay, no one kept account of long-missing slaves very carefully. After a few skirmishes against Rashemani rangers, and proving his formidible tracking skills in the service of the ruling Red Wizards, he'd been assigned a queer mission under one in particular. He only knew what he was told, which wasn't much, and that was that they were tracking a Wychalarn. Even before catching sight of them Sembia, the tracks'd made it obvious she too was accompanied by a bodyguard who was more than her double in foot and weight.   
  
On the big man's shoulder sat an enormous, grisly street rat. Its sinewy pinkish flesh sprouted matted, mangy black hair, numerous grey scars, and its mouth sprouted fanglike incisors dripping with froth.   
  
This rat had been born in a ghetto gutter not far from the birthplace of his current 'mount', as he thought of the man. The smallest of a litter one too many for his mother's teats, he the runt had been pushed aside by his mother and siblings, all greedy for her milk. So, he the newborn life had done what all life should - whatever it took to survive. Small he was but born already with two teeth, and he had sunk them into the next-smallest of the litter, piercing her membranous peach skin, slaying her so easily and relishing the blood almost as much as he then could their mother's milk. The next two weeks had been the only bliss he had ever known, for a wagon wheel had crushed his entire family, and even caught the tip of his snout, which was horribly misshapen to this day.   
  
Ever since, the young rat had fended for himself on the sewers and streets, scurrying, biting, scratching, eating, fornicating. The streets of Eltabbar were all disease and fighting and death, and one battle with a psychotic old raccoon had given him a great tatter in one ear, and the rabies he had to this day.   
  
In Thay, terribly cunning cats - some the familiars of decadent wizards - made life in the wealthier districts, which should have been all good feasting and napping, even more dangerous. He, however, could outsmart even these ferocious felines, and had lived quite comfortably for awhile upon the lavish foods in a great household ruled by a black-bearded man and a woman of long raven hair, with many other humans. Servants scurrying around, and a spoiled boy obsessed with jewelry, clothing, books, and magic.   
  
He had been careless, once, lured by an innocent-looking piece of cheese, and the evil boy had caught him! But instead of just feeding him to his mother's cat or somesuch, this studious boy had caged him, then put him through endless, maddening mazes to get to more cheese, or cast strange magics upon him, and perhaps his thought processes had been more acute, or more deranged, ever since.   
  
One day the boy, now a bearded young man, had packed some of his things and gone to the front door to meet a large stranger. It was then he felt the pull of the Beastlord, and with his magnificent rat-brain had picked at his cage-lock with his claws and tail and gotten free, and scurried out, only to find himself drawn to the stranger, who had served as his mount ever since. And profitable it had been - this mount loved to kill and eat, and was a constant source of food, be it flesh of man or beast. In battle he leapt rabidly from his mount's shoulder or bald head, scratching and biting the face of the enemy, frothing from his fangs like a small furry demon, doing the things he always did to survive. Now he was a big and strong and fierce rat, and he would act like it, he would never play the runt again!   
  
"You hear that Fynk?" his mount grunted.   
  
The man clutched his spear and crept forward through the trees and the night, moving with stealth uncanny for such a large lumbering figure. Glowing red, his eyes which couldn't have been quite human pierced the darkness. He could make out the smaller figure, the Wychalarn, her heat blurred by her tent. Outside it, the bodyguard, that accursed Mielikkite, sat on a rock, gripping a large blade in one hand, his other palm open.   
  
"What is it Boo?" the man cried into his palm, in an idiotic drawl of the Rashemanian tongue, "The Hamster Nose of Evil Sniffing says foul aroma of wicked work is afoot? Stand fast, vigilant hamster, but if things go bump in the night, then the boot of Minsc shall give their backsides another bump they will not soon forget!"   
  
The man tensed, fearing some meaning to this simpleton's ramblings, that perhaps he was made out. Then he noticed a party of glowing-red shapes much further away in the wood. They were large, larger even than himself and this rival ranger, their legs bent crookedly, like large canine hind legs.   
  
As their red heatforms drew closer through the forest, his ears perked, his not-quite-human senses taking in their guttural barking.   
  
"Finn kvinnehekset!"   
  
Fynk squeaked angrily, and the tracker turned and ran back through the woods for his boss's tent.   
  
The young Red Wizard sat cross-legged within, spellbook laid out on his lap, and as his eyes bored at it, one hand filed the long, finely pointed nails of the other with a golden file.   
  
"What merits this interruption?" the young Red Wizard sneered in crisp noble Thayvian, deigning after a moment to look up at his tracker's bald head in the doorway. "The value of my time is beyond the reckoning of a barbaric commoner (especially one who fetishizes a mutant rodent I should have fed to mother's familiar long ago)."   
  
"Sorry boss," his tracker grunted in a slave dialect, looking down while Fynk snarled atop his shoulder. "Gnolls. Coming through the woods. They seek the Wychalarn."   
  
The wizard laughed. "Boris knows Gnoll? (I should have guessed as much. He smells much like one. A dead one. Several weeks dead.)" He waved his wrists to shoo Boris from the doorway, then gathered his robes, grabbed his quarterstaff, and stood outside the tent. "Lead on. You are my tracker, are you not? (If what he says his true, we must not let her come to harm. That right belongs to Edwin Odesserion...soon.)"   
  
Boris led the wizard through the dark forest, and came back to the small campsite of the Rashemanians. The gnolls were close now, clearly audible, and the witch's large bodyguard stood, greatsword in hand, and had put out their campfire.   
  
The moon was full and bright, though, and even Edwin could make out details like the purple tattoo on the other ranger's head. The young wizard's short, apprehensive breath intook sharply when the Wychalarn bloomed from her tent, her curvy form and chocolate skin alluded, not occluded, by indigo robes.   
  
The gnolls burst through the last trees. Six flanked the obvious leader - foremost, largest, and best equipped. He carried not an ordinary metal-and-wood halberd like his mates, but one of pure, glowing metal that was not only double-bladed but also double-ended, the four blades glistening fiery red, icy blue, electric yellow, and acidic green. More strangely still, Edwin observed, his armor was enchanted and specially crafted - for a gnoll.   
  
"(These dumb beasts possess no such craft!)" he mumbled to himself. "(Whose work....???)"   
  
"Der! Finn kvinnehekset!"   
  
Boris processed the same Gnoll again, and lurched forward, spear in hand.   
  
"Stand fast, you fool!" Edwin hissed. "We must not reveal our presence unless necessary! (This would be much too early...but a contigency plan may indeed be required...think, o magnificent brain of mine, think!)"   
  
As the gnolls closed with the Rashemanians, their ranger lifted his sword and cried, "Evil dog-men will be housebroken by the obedience school that is Hamster Justice!"   
  
"Calm thyself," his witch snapped with authoritarian calm as her bodyguard attempted a great stride forward. "Thou must stay at my side and defend me."   
  
Her rich voice descended into syllables of magery as the gnolls barked wildly and bounded forward with a queer lope that was bipedal, yet distinctly canine. Her bodyguard stood his ground before her, shifting his greatsword to his left hand and yanking from his belt a throwing axe with his right. He hurled it at the advancing line of gnolls as the witch opened her hands, palms together forward, and with a womanly shout sent a gaseous green ball forward through the night. It exploded into a sickly green-grey cloud around the advancing gnolls, and two fell gagging and vomiting, one tripping over its halberds and the other impaling itself. The ranger's axe glanced like a toy off the bright armor of the chief gnoll.   
  
The chief barked, and the gnolls furthest to each side dashed forward and outward in a flanking manuever against the pair. The ranger grimaced, took his sword in two hands, and battle-cried, "Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes! Raarrrghhh!!" He lurched aside at one of the flanking gnolls, screaming, and brought his great blade down with such strength that it cleft through the gnoll's halberd shaft and its chest. The ranger ripped his sword out, spun and lurched the other way, towards the second gnoll. It swung its halberd blade up toward him, but the ranger snapped sideways, his bald head narrowly dodging, and cleft with his sword clean through both of the beast's legs, sending it down and helpless.   
  
The witch snapped her hands forward, slinging a pair of bright red magic missiles at the chief gnoll. He grunted angrily as they passed ghostlike through his armor and burned his flesh, but it hardly phased the great gnoll. The ranger returned to his place square in front of the his witch just as the gnoll chief came upon him.   
  
It was a furious duel, the man almost as monstrous as the beast. The ranger hammered at his opponent with great swings of his greatsword, but the gnoll was both unusually strong, not phased by impact and making his own, and uncannily controlled, easily positioning to parry and counterstrike, his movements more calm, more _human _than those of his brethren, or his chaotic opponent. He easily kept his opponent busy while his remaining mates circled around them toward the witch. She reduced one to a flaming mass of dog-fur with a gas-orange jet of scorching flame, but then the other was upon her back, and hoisted her up over one shoulder, grunting triumphantly as her arms waved helplessly and the last of her fire wisped toward the sky.   
  
"Now!" Edwin hissed to Boris from their hidden position. "Attack, go in, my bald gorilla of a tracker! (The situation grows dire.)"   
  
While the Thayvian ranger bounded toward the fray, the Rashemanian saw his flailing witch being hoisted off out of the corner of his eye. "Dyaneheir!! Nooooo!!! RAAARRRRGHGGHGHGHGH!!!" The great man burst into frenzy, froth flinging in arcs from his lips as he swung wildly at the great gnoll, who backed up, his animal eyes gleaming with intelligence. The monster feigned back from a wide swing, and pushed forward with one haft of his halberd. The flat of the electric blade smashed against the bald ranger's forehead, as if the circular tattoo had been a bullseye. It silenced and felled the man abruptly. His large body all but shook the ground, and terrified hamster-squeaks echoed.   
  
The great gnoll lifted his halberd overhead for an executioner-style chop, but snarled and turned his head to see a second enormous human charming with a spear brandished like a lance. To the gnoll holding the struggling Wychalarn he barked, "Ta kvinneheks til hoyborg. Ta hennes levende til gul menneskelig helgen. Ingen eteing!"   
  
The lackey obliged and fled in the direction of their first ambush, snorting as it loped through the dissipating stinking cloud, the witch it gripped over one shoulder struggling and screaming, physical restrained and unable to cast properly, but doing her meager best to claw with fine long nails at her captor's furry hide.   
  
"Die scum!" the chief gnoll barked at Boris in gravelly common, and used his executioner's wind-up to bring his magical halberd down toward the advancing man, who leapt aside off one stiding leg and dodged the halberd, then thrust at the gnoll's midsection with his spear, but the beast's armor deflected the tip.   
  
Watching, Edwin grimaced from his hiding place, clasped his quarterstaff in one armpit, and as quietly as he could invoked chosen arcane syllables, and grabbed from pouches at his belt, flinginng powder and liquid into the air. The smell of chlorine filled his nostrils, and as his chant punctuated, the powder ignited, ripping apart the hydrogen in the air. It bonded with the spray, and when Edwin pushed his forearm through it, shaping elegantly with his palms and fingers, forming a greenish arrow of hydrochloric acid that sailed from his fingertips and he jerked them back. It sped through the night air and splashed into the back of the gnoll that carried the witch away. The beast yelped, faltered, and before it could regain its pace, a pair of magic missiles slammed into its back even as the acid burned through fur and flesh. It growled angrily, nearly dropping the witch. Another pair of magic missiles, frying its internal organs as acid dissolved a link in its spine, and it fell, dead.   
  
The witch landed atop her late captor, and rolled of its steaming body. She saw her own bodyguard down, the chief gnoll dueling an unfamilar but uncannily similar beefy bald warrior, and in a blink juxtaposed that with the strange barrage of spells that had saved her.   
  
She knew.   
  
Scruffling noises sounded from nearby, and the moonlight shone down one the gnoll that had been gassed but not self-impaled by her stinking cloud. She faced the wakening creature and began to cast.   
  
The gnoll chief slashed clean through Boris's splintmail and into his lower left ribcage, the blade's magical fire cooking his liver. An acid arrow shot from the darkness and slashed against his shoulder, seeping through the cracks in his armor-plates and burning beneath. The gnoll's eyes darted around as he pulled his halberd out of his foe and spun full circle, taking in his lackey charging the Wychalarn, and his brain deduced the presence of another wizard, somewhere. He completed his spin, slamming the cold-blade of his magnificent halberd into the human warrior's upper arm, to the bone, severing the bicep and cutting short the man's spear thrust.   
  
"Now you die human," the great gnoll growled into Boris's horrified face, as if about to bite off his head. "Tell Malar that Gnamesh is beast king here!"   
  
Another acid arrow struck Gnamesh, splashing over the side of his face. He reflexively closed one eye, and luckily it dribbled over his deep brow without eroding the precious lid. Then a small but vicious rodent leapt from the human's shoulder, and clawed at the other side of Gnamesh's face rabidly, drawing blood. While the gnoll grabbed for the squirming rodent, batting it away into the air, the maimed Boris took the initiative, backing up, and thrusting the spear forward in his one good right arm. Gnamesh pulled his halberd haft down and knocked it aside, then pushed the pointed spike between the blades straight into Boris's chest. The spike pierced his heart, and he could feel poison polluting his arteries, his own heart's last beats killing him by pumping it around his body.   
  
"You're just a monster," Boris grunted weakly. A pair of magic missiles out of the darkness slammed into Gnamesh, but the gnoll barely flinched.   
  
Beyond them, the Wychalarn chanted, raised her hands together, and opened one palm downward toward the charging gnoll, as if letting water flow from it. Instead, a screaming rainbow of clashing colors arced forth, and the gnoll's eyes widened, the beady pupils flashing, and it frothed as if with seizure. The beast fell over, catatonic, and sliced its own neck open with the edge of its halberd blade.   
  
"Yes, human..." Gnamesh roared in triumph as Boris fell to his knees, his muscles slackened, his mind reeling, his throat closing off with the poison. "We all monsters."   
  
Gnamesh slung his great halberd around, and it crashed deep into Boris's chest, the corner of the edge protruding out his back. He grunted, pulled out his weapon, and turned and dashed after the fleeing witch. She had no hope of running from the beast chief which loped at nearly thrice her foot speed, and no hope of hiding from his heat-seeing eyes and canine ears and nose. She turned and fired a chromatic orb, but Gnamesh flinched without breaking lope and it whizzed by his shoulder. He swept the Wychalarn up in one gigantic forepaw, slung her kicking and screaming over one armored shoulder while dropping his halberd into the other, and raced into the denser forest from which he'd sprung not ten minutes ago, leaving his six lackeys to rot, and howling with glee at the full moon.   
  
The attacking wizard that he had been content to leave undiscovered now crept forward, surveying the damage with an almost regal bearing as he strode with his quarterstaff, red robes billowing behind him. Six dead gnolls and two dead bodyguards. Or were they? The brained Rashemanian was deathly still, but his own quivered, bled, and blubbered.   
  
"You fool!" Edwin hissed down at Boris, who lay clutching the open wound in his chest. "The mission is as good as failed! (What did those overgrown flea-trollies have in mind? I must know. But how? Ah.) What did the proverbial leader of the pack bark to his puppy? Quickly, before you expire!"   
  
His mouth frothing blood-bubbles of air and his chest wheezing, Boris gurgled, "Take woman witch to our stronghold. Take her alive to yellow-spikes-hair sword human. No eating!"   
  
"Intruiging," Edwin scratched his beard, and leaned on his quarterstaff.   
  
"Heal..." Boris whispered.   
  
"Hmm?" Edwin's eyeballs swiveled down, sneering slightly at the annoyances of his interrupted thoughts. "Ah. As much as I still require a bodyguard (not to mention a pack-mule), I'm afraid I downed our last potion after those dreadful mosquito bites I suffered four days past. Even if I could carry or drag your ogrish carcass to whatever pagan temples might dot this barbaric western land, I doubt we've the funds to raise you. (Although intimidating a backwater cleric into 'volunteering' the aforementioned service would be excellent combat-magic practice. And most entertaining.) I shall have to identify this 'stronghold' (some beast-warren most likely...but what of this human?) and perhaps recruit replacement lackeys (regardless of my peerless magical prowess, I will at least need pack-mules...that Nashkel backwater is close now, but tomorrow will be outright unbearable). It would seem we must part ways here, but you served as well as can be expected for one of your caste. I'm sure your heathen beastlord will enjoy repeatedly hunting and devouring your soul for eternity, but your mortal coil is void. Goodbye, Boris."   
  
The Red Wizard gathered his robes, and retreated to his campsite. Boris, already far gone, continued to leak out his life-blood, and within a minute more his heart stilled, his eyes closed, and his soul fled to Tarterus. From the ground nearby, a rodent scurried up onto his chest, and squeeked with rage. His mount was no more!   
  
That was the end of Boris, but not of Fynk. The Thayvian sewer rat lived for a time off the flesh of its former mount, which drew all manner of carrion bird, earthbound vermin, and parasite in the coming weeks. Of the rodents that came, Fynk defended viciously, but rather than driving them off, merely subjugated them into a state whereby they remained, but under the dominance of Fynk. By the time this food source was lost to lower forms of life, Fynk was rat-lord of a pack of field mice, and with an iron paw his dominion grew and grew over the next few years, and even tree-dwelling squirrels and subterranean moles who lived to close, learned to move, or to live under Fynk. The great rat took many a female field-mouse into his burrow, and among his progeny was the dread rat Kluny, who would in time lead a horde of vermin to a place of peaceful rodents known as Redstone Abbey, and Kluny himself would battle against a valiant hamster whose father only is now living and concerned. For that, as furrykind say, is another tail.


	19. Mourning and Knight

**19. Mourning and Knight **  
  
"Wowwie wow!!" Imoen exclaimed as her party strode towards the Song of the Morning temple just east of Beregost. "It's so...so..."   
  
Jaheira supplied, "Garish? Gaudy? Showy? Overwrought? Compensatory? Extravagant? Ostentatious? Meretric-"   
  
Onyx in turn interrupted, "So, Jaheira, I guess I've just figured out how you knew Gorion..."   
  
Jaheira went deathly pale and Khalid nearly tripped over himself.   
  
"...You sound like you obviously used to work at the library!" The paladin laughed and the half-elves calmed again. He'd intended the joke for no more than it was, but his companions' overreactions weren't lost on him. Viconia snickered as well.   
  
Relieved but still fuming at her charge's jest, Jaheira snarled, "I stand by my adjectives."   
  
"Hey now guys," Garrick shrugged, "What's wrong with extravagant and showy?"   
  
His companions' ten eyes all immediately set themselves on his loud, multicolored, nigh-blinding jester's outfit. "That," Viconia said bluntly, pointing at his garments, "Is what is wrong with showy." Several of the others laughed.   
  
The bard sighed dejectedly while Viconia glared at Jaheira and declared, "You know, _elg'caress _, as much as it pains me to admit something useful escaped those misshapen lips of yours, Lathander's clergy and architects do clearly have the aesthetic sense of simpering _rivvel _children. These bright primary colors," she gestured forward to the temple's many red stained-glass domes, white marble walls, and golden yellow banners, "And blockish shapes," she gesticulated gracefully as if caressing its flat, rectangular walls and hemispherical domes, "remind you of the playthings of your young, do they not? A temple of Shar, now _that _is a sight to behold. The elegant twisting forms, the subtle, delectable deep purples and blacks - bah, this temple is a bright, burning abdonimation itself, like your accursed sun!"   
  
"Very perceptive," Onyx grinned semi-sarcastically at the drow, "That's precisely the idea. Lathander is the Morninglord, the Dawnbringer. He and your Nightsinger are, well, night and day."   
  
Viconia snorted. "You speak of him so reverently. You and I, _rivvel-jaluk _, are night and day."   
  
"Yes," Onyx smiled, and procured his holy symbol, "We are."   
  
Viconia might as well have been a vampiress for her reaction to the token. "You..." she snarled, " _Worship _that vain, hypocritical god?"   
  
"You already knew I was a paladin," Onyx smiled, "Would you prefer Tyr? Torm? _Helm? _'The righteous path of Helm'?" his voice lifted in pitch and virbrato, in imitation of another knight's.   
  
Viconia brooded quietly, fuming. "Lathander has proved more... _pliable _than some of his cronies," she smiled confidently.   
  
"Yes, he is _flexible _, and optimistic," Onyx looked pointedly at Viconia, and caught her deep, dark eyes with his, "He sees the good that can come of anything...or anyone."   
  
"Equivocate not, 'divine champion'," Viconia snorted in disdain. "You are of the morning, I am the night."   
  
"No, 'lossmaiden'," Onyx disagreed, "You are of the mourning, I am the knight."   
  
Viconia spat upon the ground in utter disgust, and said nothing more.   
  
"Ooooh," Imoen exclaimed as they went inside the temple. "It's even prettier in here!"   
  
Even Viconia could not help gasping as they entered the vaulted chamber. The stained-glass domes above let much kadeidoscopic filtered sunlight through, to the drow's wincing disappointment, and though she would have sooner died than admit it, it was a fascinating sight. Reds, blues, golds, all sorts of light colors flooded everywhere.   
  
Most prominently, in the center of the chamber rose a large marble statue, of a robed man who "held" a suspended glowing orb. It was like a small sun, and Viconia reflexively winced, but then noticed, strangely, that it was actually strangely appearing to behold, its light cool and unburning.   
  
"Hey," Garrick nodded, "It's mayor Keldath Ormlyr! He's a priest here too, ya know. Not a bad guy. Likes music. The lady's Marianne."   
  
Standing at the base of the statue were a human couple, clearly clerics of Lathander from their vestments. That was to be expected, it being a temple of samesaid deity, but around them were three creatures that most of the group had never seen - sirens. Their bodies were esquisitely curved and beautiful, and clad sparingly in silken blue 'robes,' two-piece loincloths really, that revealed nearly all of their soothing green-blueish skin. Their hair too was long and palish silver-white and silken, flowing naturally over their rounded bodies as waterfalls over the rocks they have smoothed, and smooth indeed their maidenly bodies were. Their elegant faces sang what must have been the most beautiful melody that most of the adventurers had ever heard. Onyx, charged by the beauty overloading multiple senses, including that of his patron's divine presence, exhaled like a man reborn.   
  
Garrick was more singularly focuses on the nymphs (as was Khalid until a withering glare from Jaheira), and so Viconia. "It would seem there are some constants among clergies," she caught Onyx's gaze, and led it from the nymphs, to Keldath, then tossed back her own hair and thought fondly of many a male slave over the centuries.   
  
"We revere beauty and love," the paladin rejoined, "Apart from status and power."   
  
"Welcome!" thundered Keldath, a trim, early-30s man with light brunette hair, opening his arms in greetings. "The traveling adventurer is never turned away from a house of Lathander, as we strive to aid all who make a difference in the Realms."   
  
Onyx smiled at Viconia with a look that read _See? _  
  
The priest continued, smiling genuinely, "If you are battle-worn we can extend a number of necromantic restorations, whatever your need."   
  
"Thank you, but we are well," Onyx greeted the mayor, then turned to the woman. "Lady Marianne was it?"   
  
"Yes," the blonde woman smiled.   
  
"You wouldn't be the wife of a Roe, would you, Miss?" Onyx continued.   
  
Marianne gasped, and held her hands over her head. "I-is he alright! He is on a business trip to Amn! He was to send word of his safety once he reached there, but it...it never came."   
  
"Then," Onyx procured a dirty letter and handed it to her, "This should ease your mind, though pray for the life of the halfling messenger whose body we found it upon just outside the city. He fell victim to bandits, I presume, but the letter bears out your husband's safe arrival in Athkatla."   
  
Marianne read the letter eagerly, "Oh thank you! Thank you. This...is both wonderful and terrible news. The poor messenger...alas, these are dark days."   
  
Keldath nodded. "And growing darker. Let us hope that your husband comes soon back from Amn...and war does not."   
  
"Please," Marianne withdrew a ring from her finger, and held it in an open palm out to Onyx, "Please take this."   
  
"Thank you," Viconia answered for Onyx, for she had been afraid he might foolishly refuse, snapping up the right from the human woman, "A ring of protection. Why thank you, _rivvel _," she handed it to Onyx forcefully.   
  
Onyx tossed the ring to Imoen. _She hasn't the strength for heavy armor as we do. _The girl not only caught it of course, but had it on her finger just as soon, and smiled down at the golden band, then to her friend, who turned again to Keldath. "We merely came to pay our respects. And," he smiled at Imoen, who proudly held up a pouch of coins, "To return some of your fair city's hard-earned gold. A pickpocket's spoils, and as their rightful owners are apparently not among those who write their names upon their coins," he chuckled and winked, "What better place to leave them than here?"   
  
"You..." Viconia snarled at Onyx as Imoen gleefully bounded over to the collection plate, "...fool! Are you mad!? Throwing away your gold to some...vain, extravagant god and his bureaucracy?" She waved her arms around at the vaulted chamber. Keldath and the rest of the party looked on awkwardly, but Viconia certainly did not care, nor did she seem to.   
  
"You know, Viconia," Jaheira glared hard at the drow with a smirk, "As much as it pains me to admit something useful escaped those fat lips of yours..." while Viconia scoffed with indignation, Jaheira quickly switched her burning glare to Onyx, "Lathander isn't exactly know for...frugality."   
  
Over the pleasant clinking of coins raining into the collection plate as Imoen held the bag over them, Keldath coughed, and gently said to Jaheira while looking at her and Viconia, "All that comes to the church benefits our town."   
  
Jaheira grimaced skeptically, muttering something about church and state, and Viconia outright laughed with disdain. "As much a waste!"   
  
Onyx looked sidelong at Viconia tiresomely. "It is of my share, you know."   
  
"And mine!" Imoen protested.   
  
"Ah, problem solved," the drow cooed.   
  
"Brother," Keldath's warm gaze looked upon Onyx, "You are a knight of our lord, I sense?"   
  
"Yes," the paladin smiled. "I am. I did not grow up in a...town with a shrine or temple to Lathander, only Oghma. This is, in fact, my first time being in a house of our Lord. His presence is almost palpable, and my spirits feel raised simply being here."   
  
"And a good thing for you, Onyx of Candlekeep," Keldath smiled, for he had not been given this man's name, "For you have much need of hope. As you can see, I am not unaware of the situation regarding your current popularity with mercenaries, I'm afraid."   
  
"And you have recognized me as easily as they."   
  
"Sadly, yes," the mayor sighed, "And I imagine that is why you hide our Lord's emblem under your mail. Appreciable common-sense that sadly seems lacking in some of our colleagues," he chuckled. "I could offer to hide you, but something tells me you would rather seek justice. And this is not only courageous but wise, for though I know little more of your plight than you do, I feel sure that your best defense is offense, and you will have to destroy what seeks to destroy you."   
  
"Obviously," Viconia stated from the back of the party.   
  
While exchanging a glance with Khalid, Jaheira quietly thought to herself, _We certainly agree. We know enough about what is happening to know that this will not stop until it is **stopped. **_  
  
The paladin nodded sadly, "Yes, I...have not been relying on this to blow over. Unfortunately I see no leads to identying my enemy, and so to go about good deeds and a livelihood meanwhile, my friends and I have been planning to look into Nashkel's mining troubles. I know it seems unrelated, but what else is an adventurer to do, I suppose?" He sighed, and looked at Jaheira and Khalid, who looked back with understanding. He had on several occasions now shared his frustration with seeming so powerless to even divine, much less stop, whoever had put the price on his head, or why.   
  
"Though I know nothing more now," Keldath put a fatherly hand on Onyx's shoulder, "Come again, and perhaps I will have gained information or omen. I can offer a noble and profitable diversion in the meantime. Know that there is a madman by the name of Bassilus who roams the wilderness killing any innocents that happen along his path. If you were to stop him and bring back his holy symbol - that of the Mad God..." he and Marianne crossed their hands in warding gestures over themselves at the reference, "...there is a reward of no less than five thousand gold offered. It is a grisly task, but sometimes there is little choice."   
  
"I will seek him out..." Onyx nodded, and Jaheira and Khalid along with him, and then Imoen and Garrick eagerly so. Viconia was unreadable, but internally pleased with the prospect of making money by slaying rival clergies. "...And do what I must."   
  
"I have faith that you will, brother," Keldath smiled.


	20. Xzar's Wild Mine Cart Ride

**20. Down the Kobold Hole: Xzar's Wild Mine Cart Ride **  
  
The party headed south from the fair. Kagain strode along quietly, Xzar gleefully wore Gazib's adventurer's robe and fingered a frostwand he'd just found in the hollow of a tree, and Montaron studied the necromancer quizzically. It was early morning; they had spent a night camped outside the carnival in preparation for today, particularly for the sake of Branwen, whose last 'rest' had consisted of peftrification, and Jade, who for all her cynicism and years of training, was stoically bracing herself for her first real plunge down the rabbit-hole of the Life - the dungeon crawl.   
  
"Ye said Gazib wore yellow," Montaron asked Xzar, "But now his robe be green?"   
  
"Oh yes," Xzar smiled, brushing some semi-dry blood off the robe, and then slicking his hair back with it, "It's a Wizard Thing. Our magical robes always turn our Favorite Color. His was Coward Yellow, mine is Bile Acid Green. El-Pompous-Minster wears Codger Pinkish Red. And you _know _what they say about wizards who wear that color, Monty..."   
  
They came to the edge of a shallow cliff, the rim of an open-pit crater littered with mine carts, shacks, and rail ties. They found a narrow path descending into this pockmark in the earth, and found the entrance to the mines running right into the side of the pit. A battery of Amnish guards blocked the door, and Jade did the talking with their captain, Emerson.   
  
"If Ghastkill says so," Emerson shrugged and shoved his men aside, "Indeed, we could use the help. There are problems in the lower levels, where we lost some workers."   
  
One of the guards looked around superstitiously, and in a conspiratorial voice whispered, "The men talk of things a-movin below, but who's to say? The earth, she hides many things from sight." The other guards shuddered.   
  
_Wimps. _Jade and Branwen exchanged smirks while pulling helms over their tightly braided scarlet and blonde hair.   
  
The other guards moved aside, and Jade peered forward out of the open face of her helm. She lifted one foot, but then planted it again. She hesitated.   
  
Emerson, looking on expectantly, reached up and pulled off his own helm, to reveal dark milky skin and a smooth, bald head. Deep, calm eyes, and a wide jawl faced Jade. "New adventurer? First crawl..." he stated paternally. Many years of the Life were visible in eyes.   
  
Jade gulped, "Yeah."   
  
He intoned, "So it must be I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Janice, tumbling down the kobold hole?"   
  
Jade looked hesitantly into the blackness before her. Xzar squeaked, "O folly, to follow a rabbit..."   
  
Jade grimaced. "Something like that."   
  
The domed-head Emerson nodded toward the trail ascending back out of the mine pit. "You take the high road, the story ends, you go back to the everyday world."   
  
Jade looked up, out of the pit, into the beautiful day.   
  
_What am I doing? _her face creased. _This has nothing to do with avenging my father. This is just adventuring for money; the life, the Life, I meant to lead after Candlekeep. So many years I longed for it, I waited, what I wouldn't have given for the wait to be over. And now, now what I wouldn't give to be back. With my father, with my brother, with Imoen. Why did we split up? Why couldn't they just get along? Why did Gorion have to die? _  
  
She squinted at the bright sky.   
  
_Who knows what's down there?...I'm still too close to Candlekeep. They're still hunting. I could go away. We could go away. Branwen would follow me. But X...no, I don't know who in the hells he's working for, but this was his idea, well, his and Monty's, in the first place. _  
  
Emerson gestured toward the tunnel. "You take the low road, you stay in Adventureland, and it shows you just how deep the kobold hole goes."   
  
Branwen held her shield close. Kagain raised his axe. Montaron's knuckles grew white on his crossbow.   
  
Xzar tittered. "Is there light at the end of the tunnel?" He clutched the sides of his head. "Red Knight takes Black Queen. White Knight takes..." his eyeballs all but erupted from their sockets. "AIEEEEE!!! THE WHITE KNIGHT!!! THE BRIGHT LIGHT RIGHT KNIGHT!!!" Montaron kicked his shin. "STOP TOUCHING MEEEEEE!!!!!!!!"   
  
Jade winced, blocking out everything around her.   
  
_This is it. _  
  
She closed her eyes and took a stride forward. Branwen was step-for-step and shoulder-for-shoulder behind her.   
  
The two women walked abreast into the tunnel, followed closely their companions. Jade held her longbow ready, Branwen was poised with her sling, Kagain flipped a hurling axe around in his hands, Montaron nervously caressed the trigger of his crossbow, and Xzar juggled three throwing daggers.   
  
They descended into the mines, and found themselves assaulted by cold, damp, and thoroughly unpleasant air. The sunlight from outdoors was virtually gone before they reached the end of the first hallway and came into a large chamber with several mine carts and equipment racks. The miners and guards scrambled about, all babbling about disappearing coworkers and ghosts in the mines. Jade recognized the description of a kobold from one of their frightened tales, and smiled. Kagain and Montaron's eyes flickered red as they looked around, but the other three had to make do with the scattered, weak torches lining the walls. _How do these miners do it? _Jade wondered. _Makes you wonder whether their lungs give out first or their eyes. _  
  
"I always did want infravision, like the elves," Xzar mused, "Too bad it's more than just taking the eyes..."   
  
"Xzar!" his childhood friend hissed. "Got a light?"   
  
"Oh, Jade," the necromancer cooed fruitily, "I thought you'd never ask." He withdrew from his robes the skull of Zordal the witch-hunter, and while the others looked on with mixed awe and disgust, he whispered something into the skull's nonexistent ear. Bright white light beams shot forth from its eye sockets, and it floated out of Xzar's hand like a balloon, and sat hovering a foot or two over his shoulder, illuminating their trail with its twin eye-beams.   
  
"The undead clowns call these _head _lights," Xzar grinned proudly up at the floating cranium. "A necromancer's preferred implementation of mage light."   
  
Jade smirked. "Zordal's head was never this bright in life."   
  
The smile fell from her face when an arrow whizzed past her head. "Kobold!" Montaron yelped, his eyes peering forth and glowing red. Jade had her bow already strung, and fired an arrow into the darkness, and cursed when she heard it ping against stone. A throwing axe and a stone flew past her head, and Kagain and Branwen cursed as well as the hurled weapons echoed off stone. A bolt sailed past, an anguished "Yiip!!!!" could be heard from up ahead, and Montaron cackled contentedly. The party strode up to find the kobold lying in a pool of its own blood, its long tongue hanging out of its mouth as it died with a crossbow bolt in its tiny chest. Jade bent over it, collecting a few gold pieces in its pocket, when she noticed a green vial at its belt.   
  
"What do we have here?" she smiled, "Antidote or some such?" it was greenish, and looked much like off-the-shelf antidote potions, but somehow the color was a little strange.   
  
Kagain inspected it. "Well, this'd be as poisonous as whatever you tried to counteract!" he chuckled. "Been an arms merchant long enough to know _this _stuff when I see it." He up snatched the dead kobold's shortsword and poured the potion on it.   
  
"Hey!" Jade snapped, "We can sell that! Some merchant you are, old dwa-" she fell silent when the fluid oozed over the blade, and the metal turned a strange purplish-gray color. Jade never would have thought it possible for metal to appear sickly as flesh might, but it did. Kagain gave the blade the lightest of taps, and it shattered like glass. "Brilliant, Kagain!" she grinned. "So that's how the little buggers are doin' it! Nothing to do now but follow the trail of 'em!"   
  
"Better start now," Branwen hollered as a thousand little kobold 'yips' could be heard up ahead in the darkness, "Because the trail of them starts here!"   
  
Xzar's headlights flooded forward to reveal a horde of yipping demons.   
  
The party unleashed their eclectic mix of missiles into the cavern ahead, and pained yips echoed. The horde straggled forward, and Kagain reached for his battleaxe. Jade flipped her bow over one shoulder while drawing her bastard sword, and her eyes brightened in amazement as Branwen with a single brave cry conjured an azure hammer with an ethereal glow.   
  
"Oh, Monty!" Xzar squealed with delight as Branwen pounded kobolds left and right into the stone floor, "It's like Whack-a-Kobold!"   
  
The necromancer tried out his jagged blue wand, shooting forth an air-chilling beam of frost into the horde. "Kobold-Cicles!" Xzar laughed at the little monsters frozen and shattered by the beam.   
  
Jade and Kagain cleaved into two of the last three yipping monsters with downward swings, but the third pounced upon the dwarf with a feral snarl, jabbing its crude shortsword at the open face of his helm. Kagain grunted as the blade shore across his bearded cheek, cutting hair and flesh, and he took off both its stubby legs with one swing of his axe, then finished the parapalegic kobold with an overhead executioner's chop.   
  
"Brave work, good dwarf," Branwen kneeled before Kagain, her hammer vanishing from a hand that opened toward his bloodied face in a healing gesture. "Allow me."   
  
"Save yer prayers," Kagain snorted and held his hands up, "I only wish the little dog hadn't clipped me beard, Now I've hafta get the other side done to match."   
  
Branwen shrugged, but her jaw dropped along with Jade's as Kagain's overshaved cheek abruptly ceased bleeding. Kagain wiped it clean, and the women exchanged disbelieving glances as the wound shrank before their very eyes.   
  
"Yeah," Montaron snickered up at his shocked human companions, "Now ye know why I calls him a bearded troll!"   
  
Jade's gaze flicked to the halfling for a moment, and when she appraised Kagain again, his cheek was utterly uncut. "Nice shave," she smiled down at the dwarf with great approval.   
  
"Let's get on," Kagain barked matter-of-factly, marching on and looking about at the walls. "I like it down here, underground...where the gold grows."   
  
Montaron chuckled, "Gold I like well enough, but if those blasted miners don't quit complainin' bout problems we already know about, they'll fear us more than the kobolds!"   
  
They followed the dwarf, Jade noticing he walked as if he knew his way around. He seemed more chipper than she'd seen him yet, and even broke into a beard-muffled hum she could barely make out as, "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go...."   
  
The party continued walking past dripping stalactites and putrid underground puddles. Jade wrinkled her nose at a human corpse they were now passing, which Montaron hastily looted, pocketing a greenstone ring. He dug through one of a nearby row of mine carts, annd cursed when he found naught but chunks of ore. He was about to toss it back in a huff, when Kagain whistled and clapped his hands. The halfling shrugged and tossed it to the dwarf, who peered at it professionally.   
  
"Any dwarf worth his salt - or iron, as it were," the old fighter chuckled, "Knows bad metal when he sees it." The dwarf then held up the strange green vial they'd found earlier, and peered into it. "Same stuff as coats the iron. Yep, this is definently it. Kobolds are too stupid to poison a mine themselves, or have reason to." The dwarf scratched his beard. "Who'd stand to profit? Iron or arms merchant with another source, certainly. Perhaps an aggressive foreign power wants to sabotage local arms? But whom? Both Amn and the 'Gate use this iron. Maybe Tethyr? Too far. Cormyr? Too 'honorable'. Sembia? Now, economic warfare is their style, but so far away..."   
  
"Xzar, what ye be doin'?" Montaron snapped at his green-robed accomplice, as the wizard climbed into the mine cart the halfling had just pulled the ore from.   
  
"Too many kobolds! Too many kobolds!" Xzar bit his knuckles, but made lucid eye contact with his companions. "The mines have...five levels?" Kagian nodded. "Five levels! Why fight so many kobolds? Why not..." the necromancer peered along the tracks that stretched out from the mine cart, "...Take the fast way!!"   
  
"...to splattering yourself against a stone wall, sooner or later," Branwen barked at him.   
  
"The rabbit-dragons approved," Xzar pouted.   
  
"Actually," Kagain spoke up, "I used'ta work in these mines, long time ago 'fore you whippersnappers were glints in yer daddies' eyes, and I'll wager they're still buffered."   
  
Branwen remained unconvinced. "Xzar," she shouted in an almost maternal tone, folding her arms, "Step away from the mine-cart, and nobody gets hurt."   
  
"No no no," the necromancer giggled, and reached for a lever at the back of his cart, "I go go go...." He pulled the lever, and the cart began to creak and groan, and started inching along, then picked up more and more speed. It hit a dip in the tracks, and suddenly began flying away down the tunnel at full rickety speed. Xzar disappeared around a bend, shrieking "Waaaahoohoohooohoooo..."   
  
Jade smiled. She had to admit she had been on the fence about the idea. As absurd as it was at a time like this, long-buried childhood memories of his antics resurfaced by the barrel. Or mine cart, as it were.   
  
"Well," Montaron grinned, "If he does die, it'll save me the trouble!"   
  
"C'mon, ladies," Kagain croaked as he climbed into the second mine cart, just barely able to get his stout body over the lip, "We ain't _all _got our whole lives ahead of us here!"   
  
Montaron laughed, and the dwarf helped pull his halfling associate up into the cart. Monty pulled the lever, and the cart sailed down the tunnel, carrying the two short mischief makers, who chuckled and laughed like childish old-timers on a carnival ride as their speed picked up and the disappeared.   
  
Jade had already stepped into the third and last cart. "Only one left," she grinned at Branwen. The priestess groaned, and hopped into the cart. The armored women barely squeezed in, folding their legs to sit as low as possible. Jade pulled the lever, and away they went.   
  
The rusty cart screeched and whined as they sped at blinding speed around dark twists and tunnels, sounding as if it were about to fall apart at any moment, and every time they went around a sharp curve, they felt certain they would fly off the tracks and smash themselves against the outer wall.   
  
"T-h-a-t s-t-u-p-i-d w-i-z-a-r-d!" Branwen bounced and screamed at Jade as the mine cart jittered along at reckless velocity, holding her rattling helm, "I t-o-l-d y-o-u t-h-i-s w-a-s s-u-i-c-i-d-e!"   
  
They could hear the raving laughter of Xzar, the nervous screeching of Montaron, and the raspy chuckling of Kagain all echoing down the tunnel ahead of them, and took some small comfort in figuring that if the three ahead of them were still alive, they themselves logically had at least ten or so seconds more to live. Branwen used those perpetual ten seconds to make peace with her patron.   
  
"...i-n V-a-l-h-a-l-l-a f-o-r-e-v-e-r!" she prayed to Tempus as they flew to certain doom, her teeth chattering.   
  
The tracks sloped ever downward, conspiring to keep up their speed. At one point they passed over a narrow rocky bridge suspended over a river of lava, and continued deeper into the mines.   
  
At last they passed into a large open chamber, and they could even see the water of some sort of underground lake or river up ahead. But more immediately, they noticed that the mine cart tracks came to an end. There was indeed some sort of padding erected, but it didn't look terribly gentle.   
  
"Aieieeeeee!!!" Xzar shrieked as his cart slammed into the padding and he went flying into the air, his green robes flapping wildly around him. "I am a superman!!!! Wendy, I can fly!! I can flyyyyyyyyyy!! Oh, Monty, remember that circus? We should tell that poor wingless avariel about this...she so wanted to fly, poor thing....oh yes, what a fun experiment to make her fly! I do need some hollow bones for a necromantic experiment..."   
  
"Ommmmpf!" Kagain declared as the mine cart containing him and Montaron smacked into the back of Xzar's cart.   
  
"Oyyy!" Montaron shrieked as he and the dwarf catapulted out of their cart, their rotund bodies flying high into the air.   
  
Branwen and Jade each groaned as their cart smashed into the back of the that vacated by their short companions', and they flew out head-over-heels.   
  
"Hooohoooo splat!" Xzar screamed as he fell face-fist onto the dirty chamber floor.   
  
"Ooof!" "Ach!" Montaron and Kagain cried as they landed on top of him.   
  
"Ugh! "Ooh!" Jade and Branwen grunted as they landed on top of the other three members of their party.   
  
"Owwwwieee," Xzar mumbled, sticking his clown-tattooed face out of the bottom of the pile, "We had to put poor Xzar on the bottom, and his four _armored _companions on top of him, didn't we?"   
  
"Not to mention," Kagain wheezed, sounding like it was the last air escaping him, "The two big ol' human warriors on top!" Beside him, Montaron cursed in agreement.   
  
"I thought it was a nice little rough-n-tumble," Jade giggled. "How deep into the mines did we make it, anyway?"   
  
"I don't know," Branwen grunted from atop the pile of adventurers, "But this is a new low for me, in several respects."


	21. Half Baked Half Orc

**21. Half-Baked Half-Orc **  
  
The party trudged forward through the cave with respective preferred ranged weapons ready. Kagain estimated they were on the fourth floor of the mines, and judging from the bone-piercing cold and nauseating dampness, no one disbelieved him. The tunnel turned at one point, and the yipping of kobolds echoed around the bend. Jade stepped forward and peered around a corner. The cave opened up into a huge chamber, and there was in fact an underground river running past. A natural bridge spanned it, and on the other side were indeed kobolds.   
  
"Kobold Kommandos!" Xzar squeaked. "Kanine Kolonels, if you will!"   
  
Jade nodded her head three times to tally up the number of kobolds to her partners. Then, without warning, she popped out from behind the wall and fired. At that signal, the other four popped from around the side of the wall just as the arrow skewered the first kobold. Montaron managed to hit a second in the knee with a bolt, but a throwing axe soon followed and cleaved its head in two. Branwen's sling bullet pinged off the third's skull, merely dazing it, and Xzar's throwing daggers weren't even close. Jade already had her second arrow loosed, but as it flew through the air, the third kobold sent a flaming arrow back the other way, and as the little monster was skewered by Jade's arrow, Kagain found a burst of flame erupt on his chest where the kobold's arrow planted.   
  
He grunted angrily, but when Branwen again knelt to offer healing, the dwarf chuckled and waved her aside with one hand while pulling out the arrow with another. "Now ye'll get to see some real dwarven stamina," he smiled, "Even this'll close up in an hour or two."   
  
"Flames cauterize, no? Even if a little troll-dwarf you may be?" Xzar made weird twiddling motions with his fingers.   
  
"Right you are, necromancer,' the dwarf nodded while taking out a dagger, "I scrape away the cauterized flesh, and then it'll grow back good as new! Foul trolls're too dumb to do the same; and it's a good thing." While the rest of the party, especially Xzar, watched with morbid interest, Kagain pulled his splint mail away from the wound and began to scrape the charred flesh with a small dagger, not even flinching. The wound then began to bleed, but Kagain only had to press his hand upon it for a few seconds to arrest that. He stuck a cloth bandage over the wound for good measure, then casually fastened his dwarven splintmail back over it.   
  
"Well, what're you waiting for, young'uns? This bounty won't be around forever!" he called as he traipsed across the bridge, and the others followed.   
  
After crossing the bridge over the underground river, Jade looted the bodies and added more flame arrows to her quiver. Her first magical arrows, she realized with a touch of pride. And she had fought for them.   
  
They found a doorway descending to the supposed fifth level of the mines. Now they crept forward more carefully than ever, and soon came to the archway to a side room which had been laden with chests, blankets, and houkas. It looked like some Calimshani nobleman's chambers and thoroughly out of place in the dank mines.   
  
A half-orc with dark hair, warty skin, and a lazy eye came running up the them from a bed at the back of the chamber, looking as crazy as he appeared strong. He held a flail and shield and wore splint mail emblazoned with the Dark Sun, and the same unholy symbol was clasped to his belt. _Neither that nor his living quarters are good signs regarding his sanity, _Jade thought.   
  
"Tazok must have dispatched you, and my traitorous kobolds let them pass, didn't they?" the half-orc grunted in fright as he appraised the heavily armed party, his wide teeth chattering nervously. "I knew I could not trust them!" the lazy-eyed Cyricist continued. "Armed as such as you are, you were obviously sent to kill me! By Cyric, not a measure of ore leaves these mines unspoiled and still I am to be executed?! I'll not lose my head over this!"   
  
"Ah...yes," Jade improvised, "Tazok is most displeased with you, yes! Reveal yourself and your treachery and perhaps we will spare you!" She growled authoritatively.   
  
"Tazok is unfair!" the cleric babbled. "I am Mulahey, but I have no desire to cheat him, or thee! My letters will show, they are there, in that chest. Take them, take them to Tazok and he will see!"   
  
Mulahey appeared to calm down a touch, but before Jade had even taken a full step forward, the man's face lit up, twitched several times, and took on a completely different expression, as if some new soul or personality had suddenly possessed the body. He began ranting again, very angrily, "Fools, you'll never have the chance to take anything! Minions, come forth and kill the intruders!"   
  
"Talk about a split personality," Jade chuckled and readied her golden-hilted bastard sword in a two-handed grip. "I think I'll partition his body as well."   
  
"Our battle be split as well!" Montaron cried as pattering noises began echoing in the hallway they'd come down. "I sees kobolds and skeletons outflanking us." He fired his crossbow down the hallway once, causing a koboldish squeak of pain to echo back a second later.   
  
Mulahey commenced a clerical chant but Xzar's speedy ramblings and wild gestures sent a magical missile from his fingertips at the half-orc, bursting on him and devolving his incantations into a grunt of pain. Kagain stepped astride Jade to two-on-one the half-orc cleric while Branwen moved back, chanting to Tempus and raising high her own holy symbol, Tempus's Shield, as the clattering sounds of skeletons grew closer. Montaron fired off another bolt as a half-dozen kobolds and as many skeletons poured down the hallway they'd just come from.   
  
As the monsters drew nearer, the halfling hooked his crossbow to his belt and drew from it his shortsword and buckler, and Xzar clasped both hands into the air above himself and uttered arcane words. A flash of light rippled from the necromancer's fingers, forming a rainbow wedge of clashing colors that flooded over Montaron's head, arcing through the darkness. The clashing light danced in the eyes of the kobolds, four of which twitched and dropped, in catatonic seizures. Montaron engaged the fifth in a shortsword duel, and Branwen summoned an etheral hammer and brought it down upon the triangular head of the sixth. The skeletons stepped over the comatose kobolds, their bony fingers reaching and grasping, but Branwen shouted mightily at them, and the flaming sword on Tempus's Shield seemed to truly glow with flame. The undead shrieked, half of them about-facing and skittering back down the tunnel. Montaron whacked out the knee-joints of another, sending it crashing to the ground, and Branwen dodged the fifth's clawed swipes while crushing its skull to shards with her spiritual hammer.   
  
"Stop touching me!!!" Xzar shrieked as the sixth skeleton swiped across his robe, tearing it with bony finger-joints and drawing blood. The necromancer slashed his dagger through the neck of its spine with one hand, and grasped the top of the skull. He severed it from the body, and proceeded to bash the ribcage to splinters with its own skull, which remained animated, and attempted to bite the wizard's wrist. After he had finished decimating the body, Xzar threw the chattering skull against the floor and it fragmented. The trio then hastily bashed and hacked at the comatose kobolds before they might awaken.   
  
Jade's sword and Kagain's axe crashed against Mulahey's flail and shield, and the half-orc's grunts again turned to a chant. Jade swiped at his head, but the edge of her blade ricocheted off his helmet. Kagain began a swing that surely wound have severed his leg at the knee, but the half-orc's spell punctuated with a loud and evil grunt, and the dwarf froze in place, glowing a faint yellow. Behind him, Montaron froze, and Branwen stopped as still as the statue she had been at this hour the day before. Jade's next swing glanced off Mulahey's armor, and he swung his large flail around, bashing Jade in the helmet and sending her to her knees, almost stunned, her bastard sword clattering to the ground. Inside her helmet, she could feel blood trickling down through her hair and over her cheek from where Mulahey had brained her, and she saw stars in her vision.   
  
"Dieee," Mulahey bellowed and raised his flail high to bash her to a pulp. The blood trickled down her cheek and she licked the warm irony liquid from the corner of her mouth. Her rattled mind swam with images awash in blood and carnage and death.   
  
_KILL HIM... _  
  
Jade snarled as the flail closed in, rueing her recent dismissal of a shield, determined not to die. Instinctively, she flung her hand up, and a faint shimmer danced in a plane between her hand and the crashing flail, which ricocheted off the air, illuminating an ethereal disc. The half-orc balked in surprise, but Jade was as shocked, and Mulahey seemed to recover the initiatve for a second swing. This was was interrupted as a beam of blue 'flame' flashed over Jade's head, striking Mulahey in the face and coating it in frost, his hairy warts shattering, his thick face-skin cracking, his eyes lost under frost.   
  
"Orcs on ice!" echoed the gleefull laughter of Xzar, and Jade tilted her head back to see the jet of ice enamating from the necromancer's wand as it sailed into Mulahey. The necromancer babbled on in an arcane tongue, lifted his other hand, and opened his palm to gift another magic missile to the half-orc, exploding his frozen face inside his helm. The faceless half-orc abruptly fell over with a sickening crash.   
  
Xzar blew his breath over each hand theatrically, as if cooling off smoking implements. Then he grinned down at Jade. "Are you okay, mommy? Very smart, casting Shield like that. You didn't tell Xzar you knew magic! How wonderful! Now the chocolate-nymphs will dance and sing and shower us with honeymelon and raspberry-mist!"   
  
"I...don't," Jade coughed, getting to her feet, pulling off her helm and rubbing her hand over her blood-sticky scarlet hair, pressing her head-wound. "I thought about studying magic, X, but I never did, even after you left."   
  
It wasn't clear whether the necromancer understood the childhood reference, but he danced attentatively to her side, inspecting the wound carefully and grinning. "Perhaps mommy is a sorceress? Oh joy! That would be so much fun!"   
  
Jade's heart hurt, both from the braining and the new mystery. "I was wishing for a shield, and...BAM! I got one."   
  
"A magiphysical manifestation of will," Xzar grinned toothily, "A rush of emotion and instinct calling on innate power! How very fascinating, my sword-sorceress."   
  
Jade sighed, and smiled at the excited necromancer in spite of herself. "I can't object to a mysterious power that just saved my life, but I'd rather I understood it."   
  
Branwen sputtered angrily as she unfroze, surveyed the won battle, and healed Jade while Xzar skipped across the garishly furnished room, to a large brown-and-gold treasure chest.   
  
"Wait, ye crazy fool!" Montaron's voice hissed, and Jade spun around to see the halfling growling while Kagain too came to life, blinking. "Could be trapped!"   
  
Montaron scampered over to Xzar, peered at chest for a moment with his black eyes, then carefully flicked it open with the tip of his shortsword. "Magical scrolls!" Xzar gasped like it was birthday. "And...unmagical scrolls!"   
  
"Those be called 'letters', wizard," Montaron snapped, and pulled two furled vellum scrolls from the compartment. Montaron unfurled and held them up for his taller companions to read.   
  
_My servant Mulahey,   
  
I have sent you the kobolds and mineral poison that you require. Your task is to poison any iron ore that leaves this mine. Don't reveal your presence to the miners or you will find yourself swaped by soldiers from the local Amnish garrison. My superiors have recetnly hired on the services of the Black Talon mercenaries and the Chill. With these soldiers at my disposal, I should be able to destroy any iron caravans entering the region from the south and east. I don't want to deal with iron coming from the Nashekl mines so don't fail in your duty.   
  
TAZOK _  
  
_My servant Mulahey,   
  
Your progress in disruption the flow of iron ore does not go as well as it should. How stupid can you be to allow your kobolds to murder the miners?! With your presence revealed you should be wary of enemies sent to stop your operation. Your task is a very simple one; if you continue to show that you can't do the job, you will be replaced. I will not send the kobolds you have requested as I need all the troops I possess to stop the flow of iron into this region. With this message I have sent more of the mineral poison that you require. If you have any problems then send a message to my new contact in Beregost. His name is Tranzig, and he'll be staying at Feldepost's Inn.   
  
TAZOK _  
  
Save for Xzar's gleefull ramblings as he pulled scrolls and gold and an azure elvish sword out of the chest, the party stood stone silent as they pored over the letters.   
  
"Tranzig...." Branwen grated her teeth, and her sneer practically reached her left eye.   
  
Jade looked at her friend solemnly. "I think we'll lodge at Feldepost's very soon."   
  
"I know the Talon 'n' the Chill," Kagain spoke up, "Chill's hobgoblins. Talon's humans, but not much more civilized. Give mercenaries a bad name," he spat. "I suppose it's them we've been dealing with up and down the highways. I have ta wonder who'd be wanting 'em to poison and disrupt the iron trade, and why? Sure it's weakening the Gate for war against Amn, but it's why Amn is ruffled in the first place! Rival iron supplier? Someone hoping to weaken us all? Zhentarim?"   
  
Xzar's head spun from his scrolls toward the dwarf, and he twitched, but said nothing. Kagain noticed.   
  
Jade smiled at the dwarf, and at Brawnen. "Hopefully this Tranzig will know more."   
  
The party sprang apart like interrupted adulterous lovers as a ghostly, disembodied moan echoed through the cavern.   
  
"We're dooooooomed......"


	22. Doom and Gloom

Where there's life there's hope, as my Gaffer used to say; and need of vittles, as he mostways used to add.   
  
- Samwise Gamgee   
  
  
  
  
**22. Doom and Gloom **  
  
The robed elf sat, balled-and-chained, and sulked.   
  
Age after age, the humans and the others built and multiplied and warred, while the lower races scrounged and pillaged and multiplied even more. And the People grew slowly, and spent many a long year hiding in the woods that were sawed at, gnawed at, and they fled and sailed into the west.   
  
Evil rose and fell, but every time, the woods were cut back further, and the lands left more war-torn and squalid, and evil grew, within the deep halls of the drow and the dwarves, across the city-scarred plains of the Old World and now even the jungles of the New, and there was unchecked, cancerous growth, tyranny and slavery were exported about the world, and the machines of war grew ever greater and more efficient.   
  
They were doomed.   
  
  
-----   
  
  
"We're dooooooomed......"   
  
"What'n the blazing..." Kagain grumbled. Montaron slinked over to the edge of the chamber, and nearly disappeared as he sauntered along the wall and peered into an adjoining chamber of the cavern.   
  
The halfling popped into full visibility again and chuckled. "Looky looky here, Mulahey had a pet!"   
  
Mulahey's 'pet' turned out to be a chained moon elf in violet robes, sitting gloomily in the middle of the floor of a dead-end chamber, appropriately enough. The five adventurers approached him warily, and he looked up at them, not with fear or joy, but indifference.   
  
"Who are you?" Jade asked neutrally.   
  
The elf just appraised his surroundings and moaned, "It's unbearable, you know; waking each morn to the mud and rock instead of the rising sun. Too long for one of the fair folk to live like a dwarf."   
  
"Hey now, pansy li'l elf," Kagain grumbled, peering at the prisoner as if assessing the best angle to meet his skull with an axeblade, "Keep on talk' that way, and I'll stuff your mouth with horse dung!"   
  
The elf's face didn't get any sadder than it was, which probably wouldn't have been possible. Jade repeated her query and he answered, "Oh, I'm Xan, a Greycloak of Evereska, and as proficient in the ways of magic as any man can be."   
  
"And why then yer robes be purple?" Montaron glared. "It not be grey, and a sissy color!"   
  
Xan looked dejectely down at the jabbing halfling, but verbally ignored him. "If you be enemies of Mulahey I'd join your cause, hopeless though it is."   
  
"We've already killed him in our 'hopeless' cause," Jade snickered. "Why and how'd you get trapped here?"   
  
"Alas," moaned Xan, "I was sent to investigate the strange goings-on about this area and I landed caged for seemingly hopeless weeks on end. I have not seen the sun almost as long as I have not seen my home."   
  
"Oh, boo hoo," Kagain spat, "I didn't see the sun til' I was older'n all of you are now! Wouldn't miss it if I ne'er saw it again!"   
  
"You were sent by yerself?" Montaron squinted, "Just one mage? These Greycloaks ain't too bright, are they?"   
  
Xan sighed, and slumped over his knees. "I suppose they saw the futility of it all, and decided only to waste me."   
  
"Typical elven thinking," Kagain scoffed. "We killed that half-orc! Surely your pretty li'l elven ears heard it all. You can thank us at your leisure."   
  
"I'd dared to hope so," the elf nodded.   
  
Jade thought for a second. "He has superiors elsewhere, and we'll be continuing an...investigation of our own. We'll free you, and if you prove a useful battle-mage, perhaps you can continue your own by helping us."   
  
"I thank you," Xan exhaled, "However ineffective our actions be, I shall not rest until I have made payment to you."   
  
Branwen grumbled, "You can start by now doing your best to drag party morale deeper than these oppresive mines." Jade snorted in agreement.   
  
Xan merely looked through them. "If you have searched through Mulahey's treasure you may have found a sword among his documents. The sword is a moonblade and my most valued possession."   
  
"Oh really..." Jade shot a sidelong glance at Xzar.   
  
"It was...a bonded weapon," the necromancer shrugged. Jade frowned. "Count Cinnamon will vouch for it." Branwen groaned.   
  
They returned to Mulahey's chamber, and Xan took his sword as if it were an obligation. The weapon was an extremely ornate, impressive, and palpably powerful electric-blue-glowing sword, which the obviously weak and frail elf seemed able to wield with ease. The chest did also contain an enchanted shortsword to replace Montaron's already-weakening-iron blade, and upon Mulahey's body they found a ring which would augment Branwen's repertoire of clerical spells, and magical electrical-resistance boots which Jade donned. She also kept Mulahey's holy symbol of Cyric as proof for Berron Ghastkill.   
  
"Perhaps we'll survive a little longer than I at first thought," Xan sighed as he looked over his reclaimed moonblade, earning hostile glances from his new companions.   
  
"Be you a specialist, elfling?" Xzar cooed fruitily, poking Xan's sallow cheek and then tracing the shape of his skull.   
  
"An enchanter," the elf sighed, making no attempt to fend off the necromancer's proddings.   
  
For some reason, Xzar broke into spasmic fits of high-pitched laughter. "An..enchanter? Oh, the sadistic alien clown from beyond the moon must have a great sense of humor indeed! Nyehehehehehe!"   
  
"What's so funny, Xzar?" Jade peered at her old friend.   
  
"Enchanters can't....can't...." Xzar was holding his sides, barely able to speak through his giggling, "...can't even comprehend evocation!!!" With that he fell down and rolled around on the thin grass, laughing his head off.   
  
Montaron snickered. "No magic missiles, no spiderwebs, no stinking clouds, no fireballs, no lightning bolt..."   
  
"What?" Jade's jaw dropped. "Even I know those are the bread-and-butter battle-mage spells!"   
  
Branwen must have too, for she gave the enchanter a rather deflating, dismissive look.   
  
Xan stared at his small feet, practically burying his pale face in his robes, likely crying.   
  
"Pretty pretty pretty...." Xzar had uncovered a brightly glowing gem that had been hidden behind one of the Calimshani tapestries hanging in the room. It stood on a stone pedestal, and the necromancer reached out for it, with his wild eyes almost glowing with the reflection.   
  
"X, ye blasted fool!" Montaron hissed and dashed up, "It might be...."   
  
Montaron tackled Xzar's legs, but the necromancer managed to swipe the gem before he fell onto a moldly pillow. Moments later, the stone pedestal began to creak and groan, and its center slid upwards, freed from the weight of the gem. A clicking sound echoed.   
  
"...Trapped," the halfling sulked.   
  
Ominous groaning sounds echoed throughout the ceiling of the room. From the chamber where they'd found Xan, a loud crashing sound, as if a stalactite had just fallen and shattered, echoed.   
  
"I told you," Xan moaned. "We're doomed."   
  
No one contradicted him this time. Jade screamed, "RUN!!!!"   
  
The six bolted out of the room and towards the crude stone stairway leading back to the fouth floor, more stalactites and chunks of rock falling down behind them, one nearly smashing Xan. "So close," Kagain grumbled. Once they reached the previous level, they dashed across the bridge just before it gave way, but before they could make it up the tunnel they'd come down before engaging the kobold commandos, its ceiling groaned, cracked, and poured itself over the path, blocking it.   
  
"We're trapped!" Xan screamed.   
  
"This way!" Kagain yelled, turning right and zipping along the edge of the underground river. "There used to be another exit!"   
  
The other five followed, and Jade marvelled at how quickly the short dwarf could zip on his stubby legs. Montaron practically seemed like a cheetah by halfling standards, and Xzar, hiking up his skirt and shrieking, skipped along beside him. Branwen and Jade easily kept astride Kagain, letting him lead, and the moans of the faltering Xan fell further and further behind.   
  
After exiting the chamber with the river into a narrower tunnel, they followed a long hallway as it crumbled behind them, and it last, saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone broke into their maximum speed, and Jade led the party out, followed by Branwen, Kagain, Xzar, Montaron, and finally, flinging himself through the mouth of the tunnel just as it collapsed, a screeching Xan saw again the light of day.


	23. Chicken'n'Cyric

**23. Chicken'n'Cyric (This is Your Brain on Cyric) **  
  
"Th..thank ye *cluck*. You have saved *cluck* me."   
  
"G-G-Garrick, is that you doing impersonations again?"   
  
While journeying southwest from Beregost on their hunt for Bassilus, the party had just taken out a ravenous dread wolf with a few well-aimed arrows, moments before it pounced on, oddly enough, a rather domestic-looking chicken in the wilderness. An odd, common-speaking but chicken-clucking voice had just wafted out of their midst, and all eyes were turned on Garrick, who during the last hour had shown off mediocre-quality impersonations of Eliminster, Drizzt Do'Urden, Ellesime (to which Jaheira remarked, 'Bard, you are annoying enough as yourself. Must you emulate the most annoying figures in all the Realms as well?') and all of his current companions (earning the amusement of Khalid, Imoen, and Onyx, the irriation of Jaheira, and several idle-or-perhaps-not-so-idle death threats from Viconia).   
  
"No way!" the bard shrugged innocently. "Want me to do another one though?''   
  
"If you dare," hissed a certain drow priestess, who shall remained nameless, "I shall pluck the strings from your harp, thread them through small holes I shall bore in your toes, and hang you upside down while flailing you with a poisoned tentacle rod!"   
  
"Eeek!" Garrick stammered, "Forget I asked."   
  
"Ooo," Imoen pursed her lips at Viconia, "That's not very nice!"   
  
The drow hissed, "That's the point."   
  
"'Tis the chicken itself!" Jaheira exclaimed, bending down over the fat white bird. She held her hands out to the bird, and her eyes grew glassy. "I cannot commune with it. Forsooth, 'tis no ordinary talking chicken."   
  
Onyx thought, _What **is **an ordinary talking chicken, then? Must be a druid thing... _  
  
The party members now watched as the chicken opened its beak and squawked, "I am indeed no ordinary talking chicken, and I am in need of your *cluck* help."   
  
"AAAHHH!!" Garrick squealed. "Unholy magics are afoot! This chicken is possessed! This bird is FOUL!"   
  
Jaheira glared, "Garrick..."   
  
"Methinks I've taken too many blows to the head! Next thing you know, I'll be hearing hamsters speak!"   
  
"Garrick!"   
  
"Might we pose it first a query? Which came first, and what side of the road did it start on?"   
  
"GARRICK!"   
  
The chicken irritably squawked, "If you are quite *cluck* through with the thea*cluck*trics, pester jester, my situation is indeed quite *cluck* grave!"   
  
"Er," Onyx looked down at the animal Jaheira held with her signature blend of tenderness and disapproval, "Tell me, good..um...chicken. What sort of help do you need?'   
  
"Perhaps he's looking for a nice fire to roast over," Viconia offered, rubbing her slender hands, "Shall I conjure a flame blade?"   
  
"Oh *cluck* no!!" the chicken flapped its wings excitedly. "I am Melicamp of Beregost, a *cluck* mage adept in the mystical arts. A...misread...incantation seems to be *cluck* the source of my troubling form. 'Tis been over a month since I *cluck* uttered a polymorph spell, and I simply cannot return to my normal *cluck* form! My only *cluck* recourse now is to find my master. Would you take me to the *cluck* tower near Beregost? The High *cluck* Hedge? 'Tis there we will find Thalantyr. He might...er...should be able to deal with *cluck* this."   
  
Viconia snickered. "For being his apprentice, you seem rather unsure of his willingless to help you. Not that I would do anything for such a stupid mageling other than add him to some noodle soup."   
  
"Oh!" Melicamp flapped nervously again, "'Tis nothing *cluck*...REALLY! Um, often the relationship between *cluck* apprentice and master is...strained. He will help, I am...eh certain."   
  
"Sure thing," Onyx nodded.   
  
" _Iblith rivvel! _" Viconia screamed and made a spitting gesture. "First we pour gold into the latrines of Lathander, now we make a detour for a _chicken _?"   
  
"Well, Viccy," Onyx answered, smirking inwardly as the drow growled at the nickname, "We should stop by anyway. Garrick, didn't you say that Thalantyr sells things of interest to adventurers?"   
  
"Oh yes," the bard nodded eagerly, then when Viconia shot him a gaze that could kill, he hastily added, "But..uh..it's mostly mage-type stuff, and none of us are really that wizardly. And, uh...it'd...uh, probably be out of our budget anyway."   
  
"It's worth a look, and practically on the way back," Onyx responded while catching nods of Jaheira and Khalid, "Speaking of which, Melicamp, we're hunting down a lunatic who's purportedly been...doing things to people, and I'd rather not tarry on that errand, lest he claim more victims in the meantime..."   
  
"Ohhh!" Melicamp clucked excitedly, "Yes, I *cluck* saw him just the other *cluck* day in a small ruin to the south! He *cluck* saw me and rambled something about making *cluck* poltergiest poultry! I never *cluck* knew a chicken could run as fast as I did! I'll lead you back there if *cluck* it's my ride to the Hedge though!"   
  
"Then, good chicken," Onyx smiled, "We're birds of a feather. Onward!"   
  
---------   
  
Just as evening fell, the party came within sight of a copse of trees through which they could faintly see stones, but more importantly, hear mad voices.   
  
"Heh Hurh Hehh!! Heh Hurh Hehh!"   
  
"Uuuuuhhhhh...."   
  
"Uuuuhhhhh...."   
  
Melicamp, now perched on Onyx's roomy, splintmailed shoulder, squawked, "That's *cluck* Bassilus all right. And his zombies."   
  
The party peered through the trees, and just past them they could see the stone ruin. It was a druidesque stonehenge ruin, a large crude circle of stone slabs, mostly sticking vertically out of the ground, some set horizonally across others to create little 'gates' to nowhere, like little false portals offering nothing. _Just like where this madman's ravings take him. Nowhere. How fitting _, Onyx mused.   
  
Within the circle was surely Bassilus, the madman himself, a bulky, pale-faced redheaded man with the outfitting and emblem of a Cyricist cleric. He held a heavy golden hammer, a broad shield, and wore chainmail bearing the Dark Sun. Around him were a half-dozen moaning zombies, and about a dozen crossbow-wielding skeletons around them. As Bassilus rambled, he gestured theatrically, occasionally patting or hugging the zombies (often causing bits of undead goop to rub on himself, which he didn't seem to mind at all), and addressed them as familial relations.   
  
"Heh Hurh Heh!" he laughed, a maniacal twinkle in his eyes. "Gather round, my famlily, good ol' brothers and sisters, let's have a song or a dance! So nice for you all to join me. Heh Hurh Heh!" he slapped one of the zombies on the shoulder. "Oh brohter Thurm, why not grace our ears with a ripping tale of the old days! Always a delight!"   
  
"Uuuuuuuuhhhhhh....." the back-slapped zombie moaned.   
  
"O, heh!" Bassilus guffawed, his eyes rolling in different directions, "Don't hesitate on my account. Some of the others may never have heard them. Ain't that right, my family?"   
  
"Uuhhhhhh...." 'Thurm' continued to moan.   
  
"Hold your peace then!" Bassilus twitched and spun away, seemingly annoyed. "I remember a time back at Zhentil Keep when you'd sooner die than be quiet! Heh hur heh! You...would sooner...um....heh huh....I'll wait till you feel like telling them youself, I don't remember the old days so well."   
  
Hidden behind the trees, Onyx's face twisted in horror. _He....he thinks they're his **family **. But they're locals he killed and reanimated...did his family die too? Did he kill them? In his delusion now, he sees them brought back? _He felt a bitter mix of anger and pity in his stomach.   
  
Bassilus continued babbling, "Those were the days, back at the ol' Keep. Hey Thurm, remember our old pals Monty & X? Now there were some friends who didn't mind talking, no sir at all....couldn't shut up...Heh Hurh Heh?"   
  
Onyx's eyebrowss nearly shot up to his hairline. _Monty & X? Montaron and Xzar? Are they Zhentarim then? Interesting...and scary. I wonder if Jade is still in their pleasant company? If they're investigating the mines, wouldn't that rule out the Zhentarim being behind it? _  
  
"Worry not, _jaluk, _, I'll spare your barbarian brain the effort of concocting a crude battleplan," the voice of Viconia whispered in his ear suddenly. She had been behind another tree; Onyx marveled at how quietly she had slipped beside him. Even when he turned to her, she was nearly invisible in the darkness, her black cloak over her armor and hair, and her ebony-skinned face peering out. _An appropriate skill for a Sharran, I suppose. _Even her dark eyes barely glinted in the darkness.   
  
"I notice you now keep your lips together as you speak," Onyx smiled, "Afraid those bright white teeth will give you away?"   
  
"Stow it, _rivvel _paladin, the art of shadowwalking is far beyond you. Your own fangs glare out like a crescent moon. But I suppose a divine champion feels it necessary to announce his presence with superfluous light wherever he goes, mmm?" she purred.   
  
"I was simply curious," he said nonchalantly. "You were saying?"   
  
Viconia continued, "Well, _paladin _of your undead-fearing Lathander, can your holy powers not just destroy this madman's horde with your mere prescence?"   
  
Betraying no hint of offense, Onyx simply shook his head, "I've not such power...yet."   
  
Viconia sighed. Was this human simply too dense to understand her insult, too meek to address it, or too impassive to care? Any of the three infuriated her. "Then, _squire _," she snickered with disdain, "If you can somehow break that fool's hold on the undead, I shall turn them from the sway of the Mad God to that of the Nightsinger."   
  
"24-1 instead of 6-19," Onyx smiled, "Sounds good. If I can't reason with him."   
  
"What!?" Viconia snarled. It was impressively quiet-but-feral. "There is no _reason _to this Cyricist! He is insane!"   
  
"Precisely," Onyx whispered, "If he were a lucid evil, and knew what he were doing, it would almost surely be futile to change his ways with a few words."   
  
Viconia smiled. "Few of your paladin brothers, Sir Onyx, seem to understand the waste that is preaching before the avowed evil. I am glad you have spared me such lecturing - for it has spared me the bother of slaying you, of course."   
  
"Of course," Onyx chuckled. "And as he is delusional...I might have a ruse that will get him to come along nicely. It's worth a try. Don't worry, it may cost only my hide."   
  
Viconia smiled. " _I _can live with that."   
  
"Yes, precisely the idea."   
  
The paladin signaled to the other four, and briefly whispered his plan.   
  
A few moments later, Onyx strode into the clearing, and stood just outside the circle of stones, hands on hips.   
  
Bassilus spun around, his eyes crossed, and pointed his hammer menacingly. "Who dares interrupt while I speak with my family. I'll have you heads if you're hear to harm the..."   
  
"Son," Onyx bellowed an an authoritative voice, staring sternly at the man inside the stone cirlce. "It is I. Dad."   
  
"No!" Bassilus stummbled backwards in fright, nearly knocking over one of his own skeletons. "It can't be! Is that you, Father? It cannot be otherwise, you haven't changed a bit in all these years?"   
  
Onyx smiled inwardly, but maintained his paternal scowl. "Yes son, it certanily has been along time. How are you doing, my boy?"   
  
Bassilus tittered nervously. "A-about as well as can be expected, I guess. It has been difficult but I've got most of the family back together," he waved his shield and hammer around, showing off his 'family,' "Some did not seem to recognize me at first, but I've helped them recall, Father, I've helped them recall."   
  
"I'm proud of you son. Haven't seen ya since Zhentil Keep. Thank the gods we all got out safely."   
  
"Yes, I thought it was frightening for a time because I thought I was the only one of use that survived. I thought I was the only one who...the only one. Wait...you lie! YOU LIE!!!! If you're my father, w-where's Fido?"   
  
_Fido? _Onyx thought quickly. _Well, here goes nothing! _  
  
"Here he is, son!" the paladin declared proudly, holding aloft the chicken that had been perched on his shoulder.   
  
Doing his best to play along, Melicamp clucked, "Woof woof *cluck* bow wow!"   
  
"Ah, good ol' Fido!" Bassilus cackled, slapping 'Thurm' on the shoulder and causing flakes of zombie-skin to fly about. "Doggie want a bone?" the mad priest looked around at his skeletal minions. "We've got plenty here, yes we do! Heh hurh heh! Hey...where's mom?"   
  
Onyx gulped as Bassilus's gaze narrowed. _Okay, here really goes nothing. Time to call for backup. _He shouted one word over his shoulder.   
  
"Dearest?"   
  
The paladin stood there for a few awkward moments while Bassilus scowled, expecting the undead horde to began ambling toward him, but then a figure crept up beside him and threw back her hood to reveal an ebony face and ivory hair.   
  
Viconia was seething. _If that male **ever **addresses me as 'dearest' again, ruse or otherwise, I shall surgically remove what is 'dearest' to him. _"Listen, you mongrel dog of a son!" Viconia snarled out loud at Bassilus, "You have disobeyed me for the last time! Take off that silly outfit this minute... _OR ELSE!! _"   
  
"No, mommy!" Bassilus wailed, sweating with fear, his tongue wagging and spittle flying from his mouth, "I'm sorry! Please don't make daddy beat me again!"   
  
"Do are your mother says..." Onyx barked, exchanging a stolen sidelong grin with Viconia, "...or else!" _Of course, in this case I'd be more worried about 'mother' beating you. _  
  
"Yes father yesss...." Bassilus began to sob like a little boy. He set his hammer and shield upon a slab, and then threw his holy symbol to the ground. "Please don't hurt meeeee!" He held his head with his hands as if hurt, and Onyx noticed several large scars and even _dents _on his skull.   
  
_So it is that evil begets evil, down through the generations. _  
  
"Now, son," Onyx boomed, less threateningly and with compassion that was not entirely acted, "You must amend for your actions! Return to Beregost with us and atone!"   
  
Bassilus whimpered, "Go to Beregost to atone for my crimes?" His whimpering became more guarded and angry. "Is it a crime to wish your family whole!? Whatever the method, I have created some measures of peace for myself!!!" His anger turend to raving. "Until you came!!! I will kill you all, and my family will help me do it!!!! Seize them!!!!!!!!!!!"   
  
Bassilus gestured wildly, motioning his zombies and skeletons to descend upon his 'parents,' but they would not move.   
  
The mad priest then looked down at his Dark Sun holy symbol in the dirt, and up to see his 'mother' holding aloft the Dark Moon, the holy symbol of Shar.   
  
"Uh-oh..." were Bassilus's last, failry lucid words, as the drow woman gave a terrifying, foreign shriek and pointed at him, and the horde of undead surrounding the Cyricist converged on their former master. Before he could reach for his armaments or holy symbol, zombies restrained his limbs, and tore at his chainmail and into his flesh, gnawing upon it.   
  
"Brains...Braaainnns!!!!...." groaned the zombie 'Thurm', and reaching with its gruesome claws at Bassilus's redheaded scalp, dug them deep into his head while he screamed, began ripping off fragments of skull, and then delved with its long claws into his brain tore out handfuls of grey matter and devoured it greedily.   
  
"Brains gone bad, that is," Onyx added. "Remember, kids: This Is Your Brain on Cyric."   
  
Viconia grinned wryly. "If the Mornginglord and the Nightsinger can agree on one thing, it's the abominable Dark Sun."


	24. Magic Most Fowl

**24. Magic Most Fowl **  
  
As they came upon the High Hedge, Viconia was smugly resting her slender hand upon her new enchanted hammer, courtesy of Bassilus, Imoen was gleefully inspecting her new, magically glittering shortsword, a 'parting gift' from a hobgoblin named Zargal, and Garrick was holding aloft the skull of a skeleton who had recently been returned to true death.   
  
"Alas, poor Yeslick!" the bard cried with great thespian zeal, holding aloft the grinning skull, "I knew him, Surgeon: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy...."   
  
Viconia silenced him with a single wintry glare. "If you fancy your tongue in your throat rather than ripped out and shoved up a different bodily orifice, I suggest you take your infiinite jests elsewhere, _ssinsuurul-jaluk _."   
  
Onyx first opened the great double doors of the small fortress that was the High Hedge and strode through, with Jaheira and Khalid side by side. The were in a small but ornate stone anteroom. Hallways extended to the left and right, and a larger door led forward, through which the adventurers could see strange flashes of light.   
  
"Excuse *cluck* me," Melicamp the chicken declared from atop Onyx's shoulder, "Let's *cluck* not tarry in this anteroom, flesh golems patrol it. Go forward!"   
  
Jaheira looked left and Khalid right. From down each hallway they could see massive, disgusting creatues - humanoid, but the size of ogres, and not wearing any skin. They were merely massive constructs of muscular meat. And they were bounding their way into the anteroom with massive fists ready to pound the smaller fleshlings to pulps.   
  
Onyx dashed forward throught the main door, followed by Khalid and Jaheira, then Viconia, Imoen, and Garrick. The gasped in awe at their new surroundings. A vaulted octagonal chamber made of some strange purplish marble, and the entire room was bathed in an otherwordly blue light. Most of the floor was taken up by a massive dias, perhaps fifty feet across, which had large arcane runes etched around the edge, strange patterns and swirls of color within a concentric band, and from the center of the dias sprouted an enormous crystal, which glowed an ethereal blue as bolts of electricity daned across the dias.   
  
"Thalantyr!" Melicamp clucked nervously and Onyx broke his gaze from the crystal.   
  
From around the side of this enormous, strange device proudly strode a wizard robed in crimson and gold, carrying himself with a glowing staff and a regal bearing. He had silvery hair, and his face was heavily creased, but he looked more like a man grown old with care and learning than with the mere passing of time.   
  
"I don't have much patience for strangers on my property!" he bellowed fearlessly as the strode up to the six armed adventurers and their chicken. "Do us both a favor and move along...unless of course you have magic for sale. From the looks of you, you couldn't afford the items _I _have for sale! I sincerely hope you have some reason for bothering me."   
  
Onyx met the glare politely, and stated, "It's...rather amusing actually. You see I happened rescue this, uh, talking chicken."   
  
Thanaltyr grimaced, as if annoyed with a small child, "Chickens do not talk, so quite obviously it is a polymorphed being of some kind. Spells such as these wear of in time or can be dispeled. 'Tis a simple matter and one hardly worth the waste of _my _day. Keep moving!"   
  
Viconia moved abreast of Onyx, puffed her chest out proudly, and declaerd, "We are quite aware of the mute status of chicken, male! This is a transformed man, but it is also a man who claims to be your apprentice."   
  
The wizard scoffed, "Apprentice, woman?! I have had no apprentices! I teach no one about what I...wait...Melicamp?" the wizard peered intently at the fowl on Onyx's shoulder. "MELICAMP, is that you!?"   
  
"Yes," the chicken nodded with its beaked head, "Master Thalantyr, it is *cluck* I."   
  
The wizard scowled, looking at the chicken like he wished to charbroil it, which he surely could have with a flick of his wrist. "I am no 'master' and you are no 'apprentice!' What gall do you have to epect help from me!?"   
  
Onyx arched an eyebrow, "He is not your student? You do seem to know of him."   
  
Thalantyr glared acid arrows at the paladin. "A student wishes to LEARN! This file wishes only to have knowledge. I will tutor no one who does not understand the ramifications of what I have to teach! Not getting the quick gratification he wishes, he instead chose to steal from me!"   
  
Melicamp fluttered down off Onyx's shoudler onto the floor, and peered at at the wizard with his beady bird eyes. "You speak of so much, but show so little! I only wished to *cluck* learn a fraction of the power you possess!"   
  
Thalantyr scowled down at the fowl, "It has taken me some 50-odd yers to life to gain the power I wield, and the will not to use it. You are but a baby in comparison. Frankly, I'm surprised you changed into such an OLD chicken! How DID you manage that, by the by? You were muddling the simplest cantrip with I list observed you."   
  
"I have progressed much since then..." the chicken stammered, "And I *cluck* 'borrowed' a few items to speed the process."   
  
The wizard snorted. "As I thought. Well, it's obvious you can steal my tools, but not my understanding of them. Hold still while I dispel this foolish facade. Can't very well get my property back while it's polymorphed into y...wait a moment." The wizard suddenly looked quite grim. "I did not possess any items that allowed the casting of that enchantment. Wait...oh dear...Melicamp, listen very carefully. What did you take?"   
  
"Nothing too valuable, I swear!" the chicken pleaded. "Just some *cluck* components, a few scrolls, a beat-up old pair of bracers, a blank spellbook, some parchment..."   
  
Thalantyr gasped, "A pair of...oh no! You little FOOL! The bracers in my locked and trapped safe?! I certainly hope you can develop a taste for chicken feed, because you are going to be stuck the way you are for a very long time!"   
  
The fowl looked down at the floor in shame, but the effect was of a chicken looking for a worm. "I know I stole for you, but you can't leave me like this! Please Master Thalantyr, please...*cluck*."   
  
The wizard smirked, "It's not a matter of whether I wish to help or not, simply that I do not have the power to undo what you have done."   
  
"Some mage you are," Viconia snorted, "The deVir house wizard could have fixed this without lifting a finger. Literally."   
  
Before Thalantyr could respond, Onyx added, "So...what sort of item could cause this problem?"   
  
Thalantyr paused solemnly, as if about to deliver a lecture to students, and began, "The magic that so many revere today was not always as it now is. Any adventurer worth his salt should know this, and know that not every bauble they wring from a dungeon will be helpful. The bracers in question were a vain little reminder of...well...it doesnt' really matter, does it? Suffice to say that I have no idea what their intended function was, and I was in no position to ask their former owner. Years have passed since my...release, and the spoils of that Netheril ruin remain as enigmatic as ever. They resist even the strongest divination, and attempts to dispel result only in explosive consequences. Some things should just stay buried."   
  
Onyx nodded appreciatively, "Thank you for sharing this. But is there truly nothing that can be done for Melicamp - and your property melded to him?"   
  
Thalantyr responded, "If you are willing, I shall do what must be done. We shall need a component that I do not have on hand, the head of an undead creature. I skeleton skull would do."   
  
Garrick stopped idly tossing the skull in his hands. "Like this one, mister wizard sir?" He held it aloft, as if about to deliver another soliloqouy.   
  
Thanaltyr smiled, "Precisely," and the bard handed him the grinning skull. The wizard then continued, "Now I shall try to bend a few magical rules to reincarnate this foolish boy."   
  
He looked down at Melicamp, who began fluttering wildly. "Reincarnate? But does that spell not require *cluck* the recipient to be...dead!?"   
  
Onyx decided he never knew a chicken could look so nervous as Thalantyr calmly answered, "There must be a necromantic element, hence the skull. I cannot fully explain, but it is something of a reversal on the reincarnation scheme. The age of the enchantment that changed you may allow for a loophole in the laws of magic. Or it may kill us both in the casting. Such is life.Well, let us see if you shall regain yours, or become a festhall dinner."   
  
Thalantyr proceeded to clasp the skull and issue a string of arcane syllables that somehow sounded particularly _archaic _even to the party's untrained ears. One flash of light later, the chicken was gone, and a nervous-looking thin youn man in green mage robes stood where it had been.   
  
"And that, as they say, is that," Thalantyr said emptily.   
  
Melicamp looked down at himself, in joy and shock, holding up his hands and wiggling the fingers gleefully. "I have arms!! Arms and hands and feet an...OH thank you master Thalantyr, thank you!"   
  
His master scowled, "Blast it! The bracers are no longer on him. As I feared. Likely they either spent what magic they had in a single charge, or it is there wont to be whisked away. I had hoped to seal them away, but now it's certain they will fall into the hands of some other unfortunate fool."   
  
_Knowing my luck, _Onyx thought, _I'll cross paths with that fool in the future. _  
  
"It was the greatest of luck you did not retain a wing for a limb," Thalantyr snickered at his apprentice. "You always were a bit cockeyed, but I suppose that doesn't count. I suggest you remain here, apprentice, so that I might keep a close eye on you. If you insist on toying with the forces of magic, I should see to it that you understand them. Perhaps you will be a touch more cautious, now that you have experienced what can go wrong."   
  
"And you adventurers," he turned to the group, "I wish you *intelligence* on your journeys. I would wish you *luck*, but it runs out much quicker than you would think."   
  
"An wise blessing, Thalantyr," Onyx nodded, "But before we part, might I see your wares?"   
  
"As I said," Thalantyr snorted, "I'm sure you haven't the gold. And furthermore I see no mage among you."   
  
"All true," Onyx grinned, "But if your wares prove tempting, perhaps in time we shall return with both wizards and wealth."   
  
Thalantyr opened several previously-invisible doors in the wall behind him to reveal carefully arranged scrolls and artifacts, and the menagerrie of items was worth looking at out of sheer curiosity.   
  
"Ooo," Imoen's face brightened up with great curiosity but also creased with serious appraisal, "Magey robes!"   
  
" _Arch _mage robes," the wizard corrected.   
  
He had an extensive assortment of magical potions and scrolls and wands, but his most curious items were also the most expensive - and gruesome. A claw and a tusk of some ancient beast the wizard called Kazgaroth. The tusk had been made into a sounding horn, and claw into a grisly glove, and each he said to bring to their wearers great benefits - and harm, quite what he could not say. Onyx felt both utter disgust and morbid fascination with the horn and claw, and an unknown voice spoke to him.   
  
_POWER... _  
  
_I WAS MORE THAN A MAN... _  
  
_YOUR VOICE BECOMES MY ROAR AND YOUR HAND MY CLAW... _  
  
_YOU ARE WORTHY... _  
  
_FOR YOU TOO ARE MORE THAN A MAN.... _  
  
_YOU ARE A BEAST. _  
  
The voice had become two voices, speaking in dissonant harmony. Onyx jerked his gaze away from the items, and looked at the nervously tittering, but human Melicamp. _He sought power, and it turned him from a man into a chicken. Only barely did he become a man again. I should take Thalantyr's admonishings to heart. If I were to become a beast, I should fear I would never come back._


	25. Sand, Iron, Blood, Slime

**25. Sand, Iron, Blood, Slime **  
  
Jade's party stumbled out of the cave, Xan making it mere moments before it collapsed.   
  
"Aw, shucks," Kagain grumbled, "And here I thought our elf-friend might get a proper burial after all."   
  
"You're no less doomed than I, you know," Xan glanced down at him with an odd look of morose haughtiness.   
  
While Montaron snarled up the elf, the human eyes of Jade, Branwen, and Xzar were peering forward, getting readjusted to the bright sun.   
  
"Well, yer right about that!" The voice was a foreign one from ahead of them, and the bickering between the elf and the dwarf was forgotten as they readied moonblade and axe to the sight of four women standing a few dozen paces from the party. The one who had spoken wore platemailed and carried a mace, the one beside her, probably also a cleric, a flail. Behind them stood two slighter, roguish young ladies, one with a shortbow and the other poised with darts.   
  
"You there!" the mace-wielding woman called from inside her helm. "Is your name Jade? Hurry up and answer, and it better be the truth, for your life depends on it!"   
  
_Assassins _, Jade gritted her teeth. _Gorion was right. Why me….? _"How about your names?" she barked back. In both parties, fingers tightened and knuckles whitened on weapon hilts.   
  
"The warrior-women Lamalha, Zeela, Telka, Maneira," the spokeswoman proudly stated and nodded to herself, the flail-wielder, the bow-woman, and the dart-thrower.   
  
"The 'Amazons'," Kagain spat with no surplus of approval. "Second-rate bounty hunters 'round these parts." He grinned toothily at them. "Hey, weren't there five of ya?"   
  
Zeela grimaced at the awkward reference to Shar-Teel. "Why does everyone keep asking..." she snarled. Lamalha hushed her and barked back, "I think I know who you are, Jade. My companions and I have tracked you for many days, and I am to give you a message. You may've caused the Iron Throne some minor setb-"   
  
The spurt of words from the woman's mouth were replaced by crimson blood as 'Telka,' her face calm and almost dreamlike, dropped her bow and buried a shortsword in the back of the woman's neck, expertly between the helm and the platemail. The other cleric hastily began chanting and the woman with the darts rapidly tossed one after another at the party.   
  
The six wasted no time. Two magic missiles freed themselves from Xzar's fingertips and barreled down at the cleric past Jade and Kagain, who were charging her. Branwen was beginning a spell of her own while Montaron squeezed his crossbow trigger, and Xan chanted something but stopped abruptly when two darts pierced his thin robes. He gasped, twitched violently, and dropped.   
  
Zeela's spell never unleashed itself upon the world thanks to Xzar's missiles, and Jade and Kagain were upon her before she could begin another, swiping at her face with a bastard sword and her knees with an axe. Branwen's spell fizzled over her opponents, altering none of them, and she turned her attention to the fallen elf. Lamalha, dropping her shield to clutch the back of her bleeding neck, had swung her mace around and brained her traitorous companion, and gurgled, probably trying to cast a healing spell but unable to properly speak. Her attempts were ended when a crossbow bolt buried itself in her eye and Montaron snickered from across the battlefield.   
  
Maneira's dart went astray as Xzar directed a magic missile at her, and soon Branwen was upon her, calling forth a spiritual hammer and coming down hard. The women pulled forth a shortsword and stabbed through Branwnen's mail and into her ribs before being brained and falling with a broken neck. The cleric wheezed, yanking out the shortsword and clutching her hand over the wound to arrest the bleeding while she commenced healing.   
  
Zeela was vastly overmatched in melee by Jade and Korgan, and when Branwen healed herself and looked up the enemy priestess had already dropped, one leg severed at the knee and several thrust and slash wounds through her splintmail. Kagain had a nasty gash across his cheek and nose from the spiked flail, but waved away Branwen, who could already see the wound drying and closing.   
  
"Thanks," Jade smiled down at Telka, who lay upon the parched grass unconscious with a mace-welt from her party leader. With that, Jade thrust the tip of her bastard sword through the woman's throat to finish the job. She looked up at her companions. "What happened?"   
  
"Xan charmed her," Xzar smiled, while helping the gloomy elven mage to his feet. "While her leader was busy babbling."   
  
"Well, well, well," Kagain smirked, "So he's good for something."   
  
"As much meager good as can be had in this dismal world," Xan sighed, inspecting the dart-holes in his purple robe.   
  
"Alright, alright," Jade sighed, "Let's loot these bodies and get a move on." She looked at Xan. "Nice charming trick, Xan. But cheer up."   
  
The four woman assassins yielded a suit of platemail for Branwen, enchanted leather for Montaron, and a few interesting potions Xzar explained. The charmed rogue had apparently carried fire arrows, like the kobolds, which Jade added to her quiver, and Montaron pocketed the other rogue's poisoned darts.   
  
Kagain explained that this exit from the mines had most likely deposited them a good ways east of Nashkel. They took their first good look at their surroundings, a sandy semi-arid area with sparse, parched grass, exposed reddish-yellor rocks, and a slightly warm wind.   
  
"Iron Throne mean anything to you, Kagain?" Jade asked her dwarven companion as they trudged west.   
  
"Aye," he nodded, "A large trading coster up in the Gate. Especially large in, well, iron."   
  
"...so they'd stand to benefit from a shortage," Jade nodded.   
  
"Aye, lassie," Kagain smiled approvingly, "That's business for ya. And the Throne is known for playing underhand, like this. Almost as bad as the Zhentairm, they are," Beneath his bushy white eyebrows, his eyes flicked over his shoulder at two of their companions. "But officially legal, and in quite good graces with the Grand Dukes right now, of course."   
  
"Of course," Jade smiled thinly. "For better or for worse, it's now hard to deny there's a link between this and myself."   
  
Kagain shrugged. "I agree, but I cannot fathom why."   
  
"Who runs the Throne?"   
  
"That'd be Reiltar Anchev. Never done direct business wit him, and that'd fine with me. Word is he's a serpent of pure evil. And I don't mean a gold-grubber like meself, gold runs the world, kid and the faster ye learn that the better life'll treat ya. I mean..." his voice sank to a superstituious whisper, "...a sadist."   
  
"Large man?" Jade inquired. "Bright yellow eyes?"   
  
"Ain't he that killed yer father, lass," Kagain answered, for she had explained that terrible night to him. "Perhaps one of his leiutentants or thugs."   
  
Jade pursed her full lips. "Perhaps."   
  
---   
  
As the sky was already darkened, and the party was weary from their spelunking and battles below and above. They set up camp once they had moved far enough from the wolf-and-buzzard attracting bodies of 'The Amazons'. Around the campfire, Xan antisocially kept his nose buried in his spellbook; and while Xzar ostensibly did the same, he kept engaged in conversation (though most of that seemed to be with entities none of his companions could see, which might still be considered antisocial from any point of view other than Xzar's). Kagain was content to count and recount the gold they'd found that day, and fantasize about the appraisal of the gear of their fallen foes, while smoking some tobacco with a similarly-greedy Montaron. Branwen sat quietly in meditative prayer, and Jade pondered the entirety of her first Dungeon Crawl, feeling much better than she had at the outset of this day.   
  
---   
  
"Man ahead," Branwen suddenly called out but an hour's quarter into their morning march. "Wizard."   
  
Indeed there was, a ways ahead of them across the parched, barren soil. A green-and-yellow robed elderly wizard, singing gleefully to himself.   
  
"Hello, hello!" he called out to them in a disturbingly excited voice. "I am Narciullicus Harwilliger Need! You are just in time for my experiment!"   
  
"Experiment?" Xzar blurted out from the back of the party. "Ooo, do tell, do tell. Monty, will you take notes for me?" A halfling snarl sounded in response.   
  
The man grinned. "I believe I have developed a spell to empathically control any gelatinous creature and bend it to my will. Slimes, jellies, oozes, all of these things that foul the cook's cellar and the adventurer's dungeon can now be controlled and eradicated with an easy and efficacy never before seen in the history of the Realms. It takes an entire hour to gain such control, but that time will by minimized with further experimentation, I am sure. In moments that hour will be up for a small number of mustard jellies that I have released into the nearby woods! We shall soon bear witness to the results of my endeavor."   
  
Jade arched an indignant scarlet eyebrow. "Are you _mad _? Releasing slimes into the wild?"   
  
"Fascinating!" Xzar was scribbling notes on his own palm, using a pen made from a human floating rib. Jade was pretty sure she didn't want to know what the 'ink' was. "You must write this spell down for me!"   
  
Narcillicus snarled at the necromancer. "I have worked years for this and you seek its benefits in mere seconds? Nay, you not only seek them, you expect them! The spell is mine, mine, mine! You'll not have it! Come jellies, let us make our mark upon the world!"   
  
Jade, holding her longbow as usual when she walked, notched an arrow and let it fly, and several other missiles sailed past her couresy of her allies, and the wizard was dead, his body riddled with impact wounds, before he could hardly begin a spell. The two jellies came slowly slithering up, absorbing and dissolving the missiles the party pelted them with. Xzar fired off more magic missiles but those too fizzled.   
  
Jade drew her bastard sword, howled, and charged, but the ooze burped a disgusting wad of its own slime. She feigned side, and brought her blade cleaving down into the jelly, whlie her companions rushed up on her sides, hacking at it and the other. The jelly burped again, right in Jade's face, and suddenly she was overcome with a nauseating wooziness, and tried to lift her sword, but muscles responded at a fraction of the face they should have. Beside her, she saw Branwen, Kagain, and Montaron pounding the jelly, but they too were slightly green to the faces, and moving lethargically. The other jelly slithered forward and Xan took it with his moonblade, causing it to quiver and burn as it was slashed, and Xzar tossed a few of Telka's darts, which it seemed not to like.   
  
The battle was disgusting. The jellies lashed with blobs of slime, the adventurers sustained strange acid burns, and Montaron and Branwen vomited into themselves midswings, and everything seemed to be moving at the wrong speed. Eventually the first jelly heaved with withered, and the four turned their attention to the second jelly, which was trying to absorb one of Xan's legs into itself while he moaned and slashed with his moonblade.   
  
"It's the Blob!" Xan moaned, "Oh, the horror!"   
  
They sluggishly 'ran' over to join him, and with the full weight of the party on it, at last it died.   
  
Branwen and Montaron pulled out water flasks to clean themselves as best they good, and Branwen set about healing the wounds of herself and others, and they had to break into their supply of healing potions once she was exhausted.   
  
"And that," Kagain spat at Xzar's feet, "Is what's wrong with wizards. Insane, I tell ya! The lot of 'em!"   
  
"Now Kagain," Xzar cooed, "You say that like it's a bad thing."   
  
"Xzar," Jade scowled at the necromancer, "When we meet people, in town on in field, let _me _do the talking. Understood?" She glanced at her companions. "That goes for you all."   
  
Xzar shrank. "Yes mommy."   
  
The necormancer gleefully skipped over to Narcillicus's body, looting some money, potions and several scrolls. "Oh, a knave's robe!" he stripped off Nacillicus's outer robe (mercifully, there was another layer underneath). "Here Xan, they were never really my style," he giggled after brushing some slime off his adventurer's robe. The elven enchanter indifferently took it from him, but then the necromancer laughed again and held up three scrollls. "But I'm afraid, Xan-Xan, the scrolls are all....evocation!!" He shrieked with laughter while the enchanter sighed. "Ooo, lightening bolt. I was hoping to learn that one soon! Hopefully before my want expires, hee hee. Did I tell you I found a wand of frost in a tree outside the mine? 'Tis true, I swear! And..oh" Xzar held up another piece of parchment from Narcillicus's body, "The jelly recipe!!! Oh, goodie! Now if only I can find one for peanut butter constructs...."   
  
Xan sighed and donned his new robe, which immediately turned purple. Montaron murmured, remembering Xzar's explanation of the Favorite Color Rule.   
  
The party carrried on, with samesaid necromancer in extremely high spirits.   
  
"Oh boy," Branwen nodded ahead while Jade and Kagain were talking again, "Another lunatic."   
  
"You'll get used to Xzar," Jade sighed.   
  
"No no," Branwen pointed. " _Another _another lunatic."   
  
"Heeeeelp!!!" a brown-haired peasant man screamed, dashing by the party. He stopped only briefly, dropping a dark-glowing dagger at Jade's feet. "Give it back! Give it back!" he pointed to a shallow hill of rock just over his shoulder. "Get it out of my dreams so I can rest! Oh, I'll never go grave-robbing again! Please, give it back!"   
  
Jade looked quizically at the dark dagger at her feet. "Did you finish robbing it?"   
  
"N-no!" the man cringed. "That was all I took!"   
  
Jade smiled. "Thank you. You may go." The terrified man obliged.   
  
Xzar praned over to the dagger, and knelt down, peering at it. Suddenly his tattooed face lit up. "The Heart of the Golem!" He swiped up the dagger, looking into its nearly-black, otherwordly metal blade. "Made from a metal golem! Eeeeexxxcellent...." he trailed off, cackling madly. He looked up at Jade, who nodded with approval, and he then stuck the dagger through his belt.   
  
Jade nodded to the hill the man had pointed to, from which the entrance to some sort of crypt was visible.   
  
"The mouth of death itself," Xan groaned.   
  
Jade scowled. "Xan, be helpful or be quiet. Let's go."   
  
No sooner had the six squeezed through the entryway than a lumbering corpse assaulted them. A zombielike creature with green, rotten skin, sharp claws, and a ghoulish face.   
  
"Revenant!" Xzar squeaked.   
  
"Must...revenge...." it whispered, stopping short of impaling itself on Jade's bastard sword, which she held out defensively. "Dagger!!!!" Its eyes focused on Xzar. "You have the Dagger!   
  
Give to MEE!!!! You can rest, rest forever....the dagger...of he who murdered me...the dagger of Alatos..."   
  
"Who in the hells is Alatos, corpse?" Jade demanded.   
  
"Give...dagger....if you not give dagger....you die....." the revenant seemed singularly fixated, and its claws reached around either side of Jade's sword.   
  
"No," Jade snarled, "You die. Again." She whipped her sword to the left, severing its right arm just beyond the elbow, and Kagain had her flank, swinging up over his head to amputate the other, then he followed through on his swing to slash through its knee while Jade swung her sword back across and sliced off a third of the revenant's skull. It dropped to the ground and lay still, the undeath departed.   
  
Jade turned her head to smile at Xzar, her emerald eyes shining "Enjoy your new dagger. You can thank me later, X." She noticed his hair was now on end. "Hmm?" she pointed up.   
  
"Oh," Xzar grinned, "The slimes. Once you defeat one, you've got a year's supply of hair gel."   
  
His ever-greasy-haired and earringed halfling companion, who now had a veritable mohawk, grinned. "The 'punk' look is in this year."   
  
Jade groaned, and Branwen nodded in sympathy.   
  
The party set to work looting the tomb, and two more they found nearby. Xzar added a monster summoning wand to his burgeoning collection, and Jade found some new enchanted arrows for her quiver, and a suit of enchanted chainmail, which she donned and gave the Fist's platemail to Branwen. She took a few practice swings with her golden bastard sword, and feigned left and right, murmuring to herself in approval. She had trained in all types, but now she was sure she would never see the inside of heavy armor again.   
  
As they reemerged and headed west, the sun was already peaking in the sky.


	26. Of Mice and Minsc

**26. Of Mice and Minsc (Hamsters and Rangers Everywhere) **  
  
  
The enormous bald man sat on a bench outside the lone dive of a farming hamlet.   
  
"My witch always said that life was like a box of sweets!" he informed the smaller man sitting across the bench. "You do not know when Evil may have hidden a brussel sprout amongst them, and the Righteous Snacker must be vigilant!"   
  
A squeak was heard from his pocket, and the other man rolled his eyes, a bit of drool escaping from the corner of his mouth, presumably with surrprise at this spectacle.   
  
"I may not be a smart man, but I do know what justice is!"   
  
The other man looked over, and spoke. "Hi! Nice, place, huh?"   
  
"...and when my witch was captured, that was not justice, I would stake my very hamster upon it! So I started running. I ran out of a forest! And past a lake! And I just kept running..."   
  
The other man continued with his line of thought. "...people throw rocks at me. Big rocks, little rocks, round rocks, square rocks, sharp rocks, gray rocks, brown rocks, black rocks, red rocks, clean rocks, sandy rocks, dirty rocks, rocky dirt..."   
  
"Then they could use a swift kick in the morals, my friend! Evil is as evil does!"   
  
  
---   
  
  
  
After returning to Beregost late the previous night, retiring weary but satisfied, and collecting the generous bounty on Bassilus the next morning, the party had trekked further south, to Nashkel. The tiny farming town had barely come into sight across the fields ahead of the party when Viconia's elven vision espied a figure approaching.   
  
"Large _rivvel-jaluk _," the drow hissed through clenched teeth, pulling from her belt Bassilus's enchanted hammer. "A large man with a stupid but murderous gleam in his eye."   
  
Onyx remarked, "Sounds like my thus-far typical would-be assassins." As usual, he had his bow already in hand, and strung an arrow as Khalid and Imoen did the same. Jaheira loaded a sling and Garrick leveled his crossbow.   
  
"Wow," Imoen gasped while staring down her arrow, "This guy really looks berserk!"   
  
"C-careful," Khalid cautioned, "C-cloud just be happy to see us."   
  
The man came into few. He was just as Viconia had described, a fairly largish guy with slobber all over his chin, and a fanatical look about him. He bore down on the party, raised his arms, and shouted.   
  
"Hi, I'm Noober! Nice place, huh?"   
  
Two longbows, two slings, a shortbow, and a crossbow immediately pointed down the tilled earth, and the six adventurers sighted. The man was obviously of limited capacity. Very limited capacity. Perhaps no capacity at all. He stared at the party members like a puppy - his slobbering tongue adding to the effect - and bounced up and down just like a child getting presents, for a child's mind he surely had.   
  
"So, killed any monsters yet?" he asked, flinging spittle everywhere. A bit caught Viconia's cheek and she snarled ferally. Only an admonishing gaze from Onyx, a silent reminder of her conditions for remainging in protective company, prevented her from bashing opening the man's skull with her hammer and extracting whatever little brains might be within.   
  
"Ever been to Baldur's Gate? I've been to Baldur's Gate," the man asked excitedly, tapping Onyx on his armor and giggling when it gave exactly the metallic ring one should expect.   
  
"The proverbial village idiot," Jaheira groaned. "You know, I think I'd prefer another assassin."   
  
"Ugh. I think I stepped in something," Noober lifted a foot of the cow-pattie he had planted a large foot in.   
  
Viconia snarled. "Perhaps you should insert your foot into your mouth nevertheless."   
  
"Everyone in town used to throw rocks at me and tell me I was annoying," Noober explained, moving his fists toward his own face to help his new friends grasp what he was saying, which they had no problem doing. Indeed, Viconia was one hair from doing the same.   
  
Onyx grimaced slightly, but turning to his companions, shrugged and said, "Well, may as well get about our business..."   
  
"What time is it?" Noober inquired.   
  
"...of killing this dog? Gladly," Viconia smiled at the paladin, but he only chuckled back, for her habit of lacing death-threats into her speech had by now rendered itself moot in its consistency.   
  
"I haven't had a conversation this long, well...ever!" Noober cried with glee.   
  
"Shocking," Jaheira mumbled in perfect deadpan.   
  
"What's that big weapon for?" Noober pointed at Viconia's warhammer.   
  
Through gritted teeth the drow hissed, "For your misshapen skull."   
  
"Those colors look pretty stoopid on you," Noober told the Sharran.   
  
"Hooboy," Imoen sighed, "This guy sure did pick the wrong party member to bug."   
  
Unfortunatley for the thief, Noober perked up and bounded over to her, babbling, "I once knew this guy named Dilby. He threw rocks at me too. Are you gonna throw rocks at me?"   
  
"Actually," Viconia snarled out loud, "I don't _throw _them, Noober, but I am a crack shot with a sling."   
  
"What about now?" the dimished capacity fellow asked, this time pestering Khalid.   
  
Viconia looked at Onyx. "You said your Lathander believes in mercy. Does it not extend to my nerves?"   
  
"What about now?"   
  
Viconia continued, "Onyx, elven ears are more sensitive than those nearly-deaf rounded growths on your head. You do not understand."   
  
"What about now?"   
  
Onyx sighed. "Pull up your hood then, Vic." _As much as I hate to say it, a good idea anyway as we go into town. Or you, my drow friend, will receive more thrown rocks than Noober. And I am loathe to find myself between you and the local citizenry, trying to keep each of you from harming the other without doing harm myself. Man, this paladin stuff ain't easy...if I ever write a storybook about it, it's not going to whitewash or simplify the knighthood-business at **all **...how come Robin Locksley never had to bother with this sh-....and I should have found a damsel to kiss about 10 pages ago. It's not fair. _  
  
"What about now?"   
  
After Onyx sighed and took a few steps, the party gladly followed his lead past Noober, who unfortunately kept tagging along like a happy puppy and repeating his last question at all-too-frequent intervals.   
  
The first building along Nashkel's main street - only street, really - was the 'Nashkel Inn', a succint description as well as a monkier, and the party members, many of whom were weary after the long journey from Beregost, and, more importantly, hoping Noober might not follow, decided to duck inside.   
  
"What about now?" Noober asked yet again as he slipped through just before Garrick almost managed to close the door on him. Viconia shot the bard a murderous glare for this failure, and he gulped audibly.   
  
The inn was modesty sized, and clean and cozy. _Fine with me. As long as it isn't full of assassins, fanatic-paladins, paranoid delusionals, pickpockets, slobbering drunks - in other words, the staples of Beregost nightlife. _  
  
The young man's simple hopes were dashed when a figure who could barely be made out through her splintmail and huge, red-winged helmet to be a human woman strode up to them and began muttering something. Onyx was already reaching for his sword when he recognized the words of a distinctly offensive clerical chant, and drew out his weapon, but just before bringing it down upon the woman, she clanged her club and shield together and a magical tingle fell over him, and he inexplicably felt himself stop midswing. His brain tried to force his arm down, but it would not budge, it simply hung in midair. He couldn't even feel the moderate strain of holding a sword aloft that he should have been able to.   
  
With horror what must be happening dawned on him. He had seen Viconia cast this one before. _'Hold Person'. _He couldn't even move his eyes in their sockets, but out of the corners he could see Khalid and Jaheira also frozen as they held a longsword and quarterstaff aloft. He was reassured by the sounds of Viconia chanting behind him and the sight of an arrow, presumably Imoen's, flying past his shoulder. His heart sank when the arrow harmlessly bounced off the cleric's shield, and she cast the same spell again, immediately cutting off the sound of Viconia's voice behind him. A magic missile flew past Onyx's shoulder, presumably from Garrick, and slammed into the cleric precious moments after she'd completed that second spell. Because Garrick a few seconds later stopped talking, as he had a habit of doing incessantly even during battle, whether chanting a spell or not, Onyx could only assume the bard had been immobilized as well.   
  
The big-helmeted priestess cackled triumphantly. "It may be a touch unladylike, but I'm gonna split yer throat, I am!"   
  
_Wow…delivering the theatrics **after **attacking. These assassins are starting to get better. Not that that says much. _  
  
_Hey wait...a cleric slitting somebody's throat? Don't their vows preclude... _  
  
As if angry with Onyx's skeptical thoughts and trying to bash them out of his mind, the cleric started clubbing the side of his head, and he could do absolutely nothing about it as his ears rang and his head pounded with dull pain. _Being so helpless…it almost hurts my pride more than my head. _  
  
"What about now?" Noober suddenly bounced forwad, clinging to the cleric's arm and slobbering all over it, ruining her wind-up for another clubbing of Onyx's head.   
  
_I'm being rescued by **Noober **? I'd almost prefer the lesser humiliation of the quick death. Now when I go before Lathander, he'll probably fall out of His throne laughing at me. _  
  
"Aie!" she screamed and easily elbowed him aside. "No one messes with Neira, least of all a pathetic slobbering simpleton like you!"   
  
She swatted at him with her club, but he actually was quite good at evading her blows. _Judging by his comments on thrown rocks, I imagine he's had years of experience dodging melee swipes as well. _  
  
Then Onyx could hear the inn's front door slam open behind him, and the very floorboards of the room shook as if with giant's footsteps - the paladin was practically expecting to hear a booming 'Fe Fi Fo Fin, I Smell the Blood of a Paladin' - and then into his field of vision strode probably the largest man he had ever seen. _Probably even bigger than the psycho who took father. _He must have been at least seven feet tall, with an armspan to match. His outfit was a suit of rugged, beat-up splintmail overlaid with various straps and bands of weather-worn leather. Even through his multilayered adventurer's wear it was obvious he was extremely muscular, and he had a massive two-handed sword and high-poundage composite longbow down the length of his back to attest to that as well. Stanger stil though was his head. He wore no helm, and was utterly bald, but had a large purple tattoo printed in a thick circle that ran around the right side of his head, over his temple, forehead, and even eye. His face beneath it was large-featured - a jutting jaw, thick brow ridge, and largish nose - and would have been brutish had it not been for his strangely innocent smile. It was not so unlike Noober's, really.   
  
But by far the strangest thing of all was on his shoulder. A small brown hamster was perched there, peering down along with the man at Neira, who ceased batting at Noober and looked up at the huge man. Despite her oversized helmet, her gulp was audible.   
  
She began a spell, but the enormous man's large right hand shot out, clasped around and silenced her mailed throat, and lifted her several feet off the ground with a throttled 'gack!' on her part. Her feet kicked helplessly, and her captor's left hand reached out to pull the hideous helmet off a witchlike woman's face, and let it fall to the ground with an ominous clang.   
  
"DON'T," the man bellowed, peering into the eyes of the woman he had brought far up to eye level with himself, "Call people pathetic slobbering simpletons! People call Minsc that, and it makes Boo VERY ANGRY! And when Boo gets ANGRY, Minsc goes BERSERK!"   
  
_Minsc...Boo...? _Onyx's thoughts raced inside his frozen head. _Multiple personalities? Or…no….it couldn't be…. _As if sensing the paladin's thoughts, the furry hamster on the enormous man's shoulder turned around to peer down at him quizzically.   
  
Just then Noober reappeared in Onyx's field of vision, poking him on the shoulder, and babbling, "Gee, you sure are patient…"   
  
_Of course I seem patient. When you're held completely rigid, you most often do. _  
  
"…I've run out of things to say…"   
  
_You know, I may have just met the largest human on the planet, but somehow, what you just said surprises me more. _  
  
As if goaded into proving it, Noober zipped out of Onyx's field of vision, and the paladin's attention returned to the giant holding Neira nearly at the ceiling.   
  
"...and just attacking people like this when they walk into a tavern has the Stench of Evil about it, little woman - and Boo has a veeeeery sensitive hamster nose for such things!"   
  
"I - URP - " Neira gasped, "Let's - URP split the bounty. 340 each - URP…"   
  
_680 Gold? _Onyx thought. _Wow, if someone owned stock options for my head, they would have been seeing very handsome returns these past few days. _  
  
"What?" the large man grew quite indignant. Probably not a good think for Neira's help. "You are a bounty hunter? Killing innocent people for money? This is very, very evil, Boo, isn't it? Just like that Greywolf fellow who refused to help Minsc rescue his witch, because Minsc has no money! No, instead he said he was off to skewer some sculptor. Why does he not like art? Minsc loves to finger-paint! And Minsc shall bring the Boot of Justice to bear on..."   
  
Just then, as this large fellow was ranting, and his temper seemed to be flaring up, he seemed to squeeze Neira's neck tighter and tigher with each word, as if without meaning to, and then suddenly there was a CRACK and the cleric's head flopped limply to one side.   
  
"Ooops!" the man gasped and let her body fall fell like an armoed rag-doll to the floor. "Yes yes, Boo, Minsc knows he must control his temper when not in the heat of battle. But we get so very angry at eeeeeevil!"   
  
The enormous fellow then but his hands over his face, dry-sobbing. "Ah, a hero who can not control his strength is no hero indeed, and must shed hero's tears! But wait, how can they be hero's tears unless he is a hero? Ahh, very clever Boo! With a little more control, great heroes we shall be!"   
  
Onyx's longsword dropped to the ground with a loud clang, his arm loosening, and then, nearly losing his balance with the sudden return of the necessity of keeping it himself, he sighed with great relief. He looked around to see his companions unfreezing one by one. Khalid also dropped his sword, Jaheira nearly so with her quarterstaff, Viconia cursed in her native tongue, Imoen yawned, and Garrick yelped with surprise.   
  
The party members exchanged glances, their faces unhappy with the realization that their six-strong party had nearly been overcome by a single cleric. Onyx looked grave and solemn, Khalid pale and nervous, Jaheira brooding and angry, Imoen was white as a sheet, Garrick looked like he was about to faint, and Viconia's face seethed with hurt pride, which she tried imperfectly to hide.   
  
"Thank you, my friend," Onyx craned his head up - something he wasn't used to doing - to address the large purple-tattooed man who had saved them all. "We owe you great thanks. I am Onyx, these are Khalid and Jaheira, that is Viconia, Imoen, and Garrick. And you, sir?" Onyx extended his thankfully-gauntleted hand, and braced for a mighty handshake.   
  
The hamster on the man's shoulder squeaked a few times, and then the massive man, as if talking to _it _, mumbled. "I agree Boo, they look to be friendly." He then turned toward Onyx, grinned broadly, and shook the paladin's hand. Onyx grimaced, barely holding his own in what was more of a quick arm-wrestling match than a handsake. _Thank Lathander I didn't have Imoen shake his hand! _  
  
"Greetings, friends!" the man boomed. "We are Minsc and Boo. We have traveled far to explore this land, but now my charge Dynaheir has been taken from us." He frowned like a child who'd lost its mother. "'Twas gnolls. Minsc hates gnolls! Once we have tracked them I will beat sense into their dog-heads until they release her. Accompany us and bards will sing the deeds of Minsc and Boo…and friends!"   
  
"I'm impressed," sarcasm practically dripped form Viconia's tongue, "Such a small village, with two idiots."   
  
"He said he was from out of town," Onyx winked at the drow, who rolled her eyes.   
  
"You bet," Garrick laughed to Minsc, "*ahem*," Viconia and Jaheira grimaced as he seemed about to launch into song, "Oooo, and when the heroes to Nashkel came / a large man they met with hamster tame / and there to rescue fair Dynaheir / they journeyed far and fought without fear…"   
  
"Correction," Viconia groaned, "Three."   
  
_It really is too bad the two must ornery party-members have the most sensitive hearing _, Onyx thought with a glance to her and Jaheira.   
  
Across the tavern, Garrick's song caused a man to suddenly laugh madly, and run around like a headless chicken before leaping out the window.   
  
Jaheira and Viconia snarled with pain and glared at the bard, but Imoen slapped Garrick's shoulder playfully. "Hey! Not bad for off the cuff, Garry!"   
  
Trying his best to ignore Garrick and hoping his other allies wouldn't kill the bard, Onyx asked the large man, "Excuse me, are you speaking to a rodent?"   
  
His face betraying no hint of offense, but rather eagerness, the large man picked the hamster off his shoulder and present it to Onyx's face, cupped gently in his massive hand. "Boo is my faithful animal companion, and more than he seems!" he declared. "And I am Minsc, ranger of Rasheman, and the stinky dogs of evil have captured my witch! Let us rescue her together!"   
  
After catching approving gazes from all of his companions save Viconia, Onyx smiled, "It's a deal. I could hardly refuse, especially after you have already saved our lives."   
  
Minsc bellowed heartily. "Take heart fellow adventurers, for you have curried the favor of Boo, the only miniature giant space hamster in the Realms! My friend and companion since my h-h-h-head wound, he will lead us to victory! Onward to the Gnoll Stronghold in the west! Tarry not! We must go soon!"   
  
This statement was anticlimactically punctuated by a yawn from Imoen. "Woo! I'm getting' a little sleepy!" she exclaimed.   
  
Garrick echoed her yawn, quipping "A yawn is a silent shout."   
  
"Morning soon enough?" Onyx grinned sheepishly at the ranger.   
  
"Oh yes it is! Boo needs his beauty sleep. See how silky his fur is? But yip in terror this night, gnoll-dogs, and piddle upon yourselves in fear, for in the morning Hamster Justice makes a house call! Right Boo?"   
  
The resounding squeak was valiant indeed.


	27. Thayvian Games

**27. Thayvian Games **  
  
The red-robed man was most put out.   
  
Months of trekking, shadowing, spying, plotting, only to have all ruined by a pack of halberd-toting overgrown fleabags! But why? It had hardly required his boundless intellect to deduce the attack was deliberate, specific, and planned, not an ordinary whack-the-peasants-you-pass job (much like the previous night's engagement with the family of a farmer too shortsighted to see the wisdom of providing food and board for a promising young nobleman such as himself. A few acid arrows and magic missiles truly did work wonders on impolite serfs, even outside the civilizing influences of Thayvian law.)   
  
Unless Wychalarn was a gnoll delicacy (he was torn between enthusiastic approval and vehement reproach of this theorized culinary opinion), another plot was amiss. The farmer's wife had (after the proper encouragement) been generous regarding information about the only known gnollish camp in the region, and so he had a target, but not yet a motive. And, with his slain bodyguard dead back in the woods and by now doubtless half-devoured by his own rabid rodent, reaching and breaching this 'abandoned' fortress would perhaps prove inconvenient for even one of his fearsome wizardly powers. Luckily, with such a hick's hamlet as this 'Nashkel' being a new tourist-stop for adventurers thanks to some inane 'iron crisis' in the primitive local economy, rubes were sure to be found.   
  
-----   
  
Making their way west from the arid wasteland where the mine's exit had deposited them, the desert gave way to wooded grassland as they approached Nashkel once more. It was dawnbreak of the sixth of Mirtul, the end of the fifth night since Gorion's death, and his foster daughter and her new friends had spent a second night camping, amidst the Nottvery Fair carnival as they had the night before the mines.   
  
A small stream bordered the hamlet, and they had gotten only halfway over the sunrise-splashed bridge when a black-cowled figure met them. He was a shortish man, but had his legs flared wide and his hands on his hips in his best attempt to take up the entire bridge.   
  
"Ahem!" the man shouted, as Jade reached over her shoulder for an arrow. Her longbow was already in her hand. "I am Death come for thee. Surrender, and they passage shall be...quicker."   
  
Jade had her arrow notched, her string pulled back, and held it level with the man's hooded face.   
  
"Struggle if you must, dead-one," the man attempted a haughty laugh, but his voice cracked, "I do not mine working for my money. Why NIMBUL has been hired to deal with th-"   
  
Jade's arrow left her bow, sailed into NIMBUL's open mouth, and didn't stop until the feathers were between his lips and the arrowhead stuck out the back of his cowl, blood and a very small quantity of brains dripping from it.   
  
"Pathetic..." was all of Jade's breath the incident was worth. Before NIMBUL's limp body had even hit the ground, Montaron had looted it of magical arrow-dodging boots, another enchanted shortsword, a ring of infravision, and a letter that Jade found very interesting. She held it out to Kagain and Branwen. It read:   
  
_Nimbul,   
  
The money you have received from Tranzig should cover your usual fee. Your assignment is a difficult one, but I'm sure that you are up to the task. There should be a group, possibly two, of mercenaries coming through Nashkel in the next few days. One is led by a brunette whelp named Onyx, the other a scarlet-haired lass named Jade. They may be together, but we believe they have divided forces. You are to kill either, and all that travel with them. I warn you, they might not look might much, but they are very dangerous. Good hunting!   
  
TAZOK _  
  
"That seals it," Jade sighed unhappily. "Tranzig, Tazok, were the ones behind the mines. So I'm related. But how?" She frowned, scrunching her face angrily. "What did I ever do?" She looked skyward, eyes reddening. She wasn't sure whether to howl in anger and smash apart the bridge, or sit cross-legged upon it and cry.   
  
"I'm sorry," Branwen put an arm around her friend. "You'll have your revenge too." Jade looked to her and sighed.   
  
"Those four Amazonian assassins waiting for us at the mine exit were nearly 'up the task'," Montaron grumbled, his stubby arms full of NIMBUL's loot, "This guy is an insult!"   
  
"As a necromancer," Xzar pouted, "I'm offended by his casual assumption of the mantle of Death. That's _my _job."   
  
It was well after business hours, but the party proceeded to Berrun Ghastkill's manor in the northeast of town. The mayor was still awake, and Jade presented him with Mulahey's holy symbol, samples of the iron-tainting fluid and a practical demonstration on NIMBUL's hand axe (he, after all, wouldn't be needing them anymore).   
  
"You have returned!" Berrun declared with happy surprise, "It would seem I was right to trust you...."   
  
_You **didn't **'trust' us _Jade thought wryly as she watched the middle-aged but strapping mayor bubble effusively, _You expected us to die like the last three. But you're a political, so delay my dinner with smalltalk and lies. I expect it. And my gold. _  
  
"...The town thanks you wholeheartedly, and is pleased to give you the proper reward. Please take this 900 gold for your efforts. It is a small fortune by anyone's standards..."   
  
"'specially by mine..." Kagain grumbled quietly into his beard.   
  
"Thank you again! Of course there will be a celebration tomorrow night in your honor and...."   
  
"Mayor Ghastkill," Jade smiled politely, tossing back her scarlet hair, "As much as I appreciate it, we'd...rather not. I'll be frank, but you've probably already heard, seeing as how every two-bit mercenary in these parts has - there's a price on my head, so I'd rather not make any publicly scheduled appearances."   
  
"Oh," Berrun's face fell in genuine surprise. "Are you...wanted for something?"   
  
"Not by the Fist or anyone legitimate," Jade answered thinly, choking back political commentary and not letting her gaze wander to Branwen's platemail, "I...suppose the same elements who wanted the mine shut down aren't happy about me, understandably."   
  
"I see," the mayor frowned. "No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose. I'm terribly sorry. Funny thing, but I heard there was actually a rough incident over at the inn earlier tonight; from what I hear, a mercenary attacking some other band of adventurers who were looking into the mines."   
  
"Oh really?" Jade exchanged glances with Xzar and Montaron. _Were you in town, brother? Well, seems I did beat you to the mines after all! Happy hunting! _"They still here?"   
  
"Nah," the mayor shook his head, "Ol' Bill - the innkeep - says they headed out this morning. If I see 'em, guess I'll tell 'em not to bother about the mines! Hey wait, miss - you look kinda like one of the fellows – no offense, you know how I mean. Came asking about the mines."   
  
"That's my brother," Jade smiled fondly, her heart warmed by memories, but sinking a bit at having just missed him and dear Imoen, "If you see him again, tell him not to bother, obviously. Tell him I said 'Too slow, big bro!' Tell them I'll be headed for Beregost, he might as well follow suit."   
  
-----   
  
"A profitable first real adventure for me," Jade smiled to her companions, particularly Branwen, as they strode out of Nashkel's general store with more gold and less equipment that they'd entered, "To Beregost and Tranzig then?"   
  
"Yes," Branwen stated, and the others nodded quietly.   
  
As they approached the bridge to leave town, a figure was blindingly visible in the morning sun. He wore a blood-red wizard's robe, which concealed the upper half of his face, but a taut, sour mouth rimmed by a well-trimmed black beard could be seen in the shadow of the cowl.   
  
"Another bridge-assassin?" Jade grumbled, and her group readied weapons.   
  
"Go no further!" The man held up a manicured, ring-laden hand commandingly, speaking in an utterly foreign accent, "I require the services of your group!"   
  
"Forgive me if I'm not the fastest making new friends," Jade yawned, looking down her arrow at the man. "Explain yourself quickly." _A red wizard of Thay? _she wondered, faintly recognizing the gaudy gold-trimmed red robes from her schooling. _What's he doing so far west? _  
  
The red-robed man betrayed no fear or surprise and proudly announced, "I am the wizard Edwin Odesserion and I require you. (Yes, that will do nicely). I would have you kill a witch, Dynaheir. She is treacherous, but with your participation I foresee no difficultly. Will you assist?"   
  
"Three questions," Jade posed, lowering her bow, and her allies followed suit. "One. Why do you want her dead? Two. Where is she now? Three. What is our reward?"   
  
Edwin sneered, throwing back his cowl to reveal curly black hair over a bejeweled circlet, and an indigo necklace and ruby amulet around his throat.   
  
"Few of even the southerner females wear so much jewelry," Branwen snickered to Jade. "Or have such long, dainty, carefully manicured fingernails."   
  
"Barbarians with no sense of style!" Edwin snarled at the cleric, and brushed nonexistent dust from his robes. "(One night in this stinking pig-sty of a town has been quite enough for Faerun for me). In my mighty empire, I am the very height of fashion. But to your questions. One. It is no concern of yours. Two. The gnoll stronghold to the west of here, near the coast. Three. The prize I offer would surely be beyond measure in your meager understanding. Either take the job or not!"   
  
Jade yawned. "Not," and motioned for her group to proceed.   
  
The wizard glared at her as she began to cross the bridge, but when he stood astride her, grumbled, "For assuming this venture, I offer you one year of my services. The parlor mages that dog your steps now are nothing compared with a Red Wizard of Thay! You would be foolish to refuse."   
  
At the back of the party, Xzar made a funny face, and Xan sighed dejectedly. Jade grinned inwardly, and stared into Edwin's dark, beady eyes. _A Red Wizard? He could be a powerful ally. I do have Xzar and Xan, but something tells me Xan won't last. But an entire year? It suggests either he is outright lying, or this task is important indeed. _  
  
"Very well," Jade nodded, and extended a hand to shake with Edwin's, deliberately overpowering him with her grip and staring him down. "My party. My rules. Let's go."   
  
"Back down on your end," Montaron sneered up at his new associate, "And you'll see just how easy a fleeing target that crimson security blanket of an outfit makes you.   
  
"The greasy munchkin can talk," Edwin feigned detached surprise. "How fascinating. Ah..." he lifted a fingernail to his lips, noticing the hair gel the halfling and Xzar wore. "What is that in your hair?....A crude yokel excuse for cosmetics of some sort, no doubt."   
  
"Why, Mister Ed," Xzar yanked a handful of slime-goo from his pocket, pulling back Edwin's gold-trimmed hood and splashing it onto his curly dark hair before the conjurer could protest. "It's Hair Slime!"   
  
Edwin's dark eyes rotated upward, noticing that the remains of the Slime were still slightly animated, and did the hair-styling _for _the wearer. He looked over Montaron's mohawk, Xzar's wild blonde spikes, and then felt his own curls getting twisted into dashing coils that jutted forward over his forehead. "Acceptable, perhaps," he raised an eyebrow, and gingerly patted the back of his new do.   
  
"The constructs' high magic resistance even renders a degree of protection from bad hair days," Xzar explained.   
  
"More like protection from good hair days," Kagain grumbled, refusing the necromancer's gestured offer to apply some to his beard.   
  
Branwen gave Jade a huff as they strode west, instead of north. The warrior smiled apologetically to the cleric. "Tranzig. Soon."


	28. The Sword and the Plow

**28. The Plow and the Sword **  
  
Mayor Berrun Ghastkill was quite wrong. Onyx's party was still at the Nashkel Inn when Jade's passed through (Minsc's snores had almost been audible from the bridge where she parlayed with Edwin after being misinformed by the mayor), and the two siblings and their rapidly-growing adventuring parties might have met then, each learning of the other's recent adventures, new friends, and current quests. Had that happened, the events to come might have been very different, and likely for the better, but this was not to be realized.   
  
----   
  
Onyx woke early that morning, before the sunrise, just with the first perceptible lightening of the sky outside the window. He smiled as he felt the warmth of Imoen's body next to his and heard the faint, pleasant sounds of her breathing.   
  
What with the banditry and iron crisis all but killing travel in the region, there had been a number of rooms available even at the small inn. Khalid and Jaheira had gotten their own room of course, Viconia a small one to herself (Onyx had no wish to wake up to find his party back down to six living members), and he, Immy, Garrick, and Minsc all shared a large one. Garrick's high-pitched snoring now wafted from the cot across the room. Minsc's much deeper snoring, from the middle of the floor, was nearly unbearable. It sounded as if every tree in Rasheman were being sawed down. He decided he and Imoen were luckily they'd fallen asleep first. Poor Boo had by now learnd the hard way that this was prudent each night, and his contented purrs sounded from atop the ranger.   
  
Imoen opened a sleepy eye the moment as so much shifted his weight to leave their bed. "Just goin' for a jog, Immy," he whispered to her and brushed her hair caringly, "Back by dawn."   
  
"Okie dokie," the girl mumbled sleepily and returned to whatever pleasant dreams she was having.   
  
Garrick's snoring remained uninterrupted, but Onyx could swear the bard was almost _singing _in his sleep. "Zzzz Zzzz Zzz / Zzz Zzz Zzz / Zzzzzz Zzzz / Zz Zz!" Yes, he was definitely snoring some little ditty, in perfect iambic pentameter.   
  
In between deep, deafening snores, Minsc mumbled, "Oh Boo, look! Candycane forests and lollipop fields, and evil is nowhere in sight…where are the hamster treats, you ask?…" Onyx arched an eyebrow, for he noticed that in between Minsc's statements, the small brown hamster curled up in the center of his vast chest seemed itself to sleep-squeak quietly, as if conversing with the ranger in their dreams.   
  
Less than sixty seconds later, Onyx was in tunic and trousers and boots, longsword over his back if it came to that, jogging around the edge of the small hamlet for his morning run, something that he almost always did before dawn, until recently. Now, on the road and hunted, being able to do anything like this, much less at a particular time of day, had like bathing and shaving suddenly become a luxury, and he was glad for this chance. Running, firstly, was an important part of a warrior's regimen, if he wished to be fast on his feet, and have the aerobic stamina to battle. Most civilians he knew had little appreciation for this.   
  
Adventuring was dangerous, everyone knew, and tiring, they supposed, but it was hard just to imagine how tiring, particularly for a warrior who used large weapons and heavy armors. Anyone who tried to wear metal all over their body, while walking for hours on end, or even while swinging more metal around over their head, while making quick full-body movements to thrust and dodge and move quickly, would soon understand just how tiring it should be, like wearing several dozen pounds of iron and dancing in it for several hours. Having one's brain filled with mortal fear the whole time didn't help. Then again, sometimes it did.   
  
Hence the training. Part of his training, while exercising, was to maintain mental discipline. Just practicing _staying calm _. Easy to do while running, but that is bad, for it lessens the value of the practice. Important for an adventurer, especially a front-line warrior, and party 'leader' - as Jaheira paid him lip service, though truly he thought, or at least hoped, it was her much greater wisdom leading them.   
  
Going into a panic was certainly not a good battle strategy, and obviously terrible for the morale of one's companions. At the opposite extreme, going into a rage was a practice of some warriors. This Minsc fellow had mentioned something about this the previous night. He, though, tried to avoid both extremes, with moderate success thus far. As when faced when antagonistic companions - Viconia and her tireless haughtiness and cynicism, Jaheira and her maternal nagging - when facing enemies he had found it best to remain calm. As not to feel the need to retort to every insult in kind, but to massage or ignore it, so to not to overreact to the inexpert weapon-swings of these rookie assassins and highway thugs, but let most of them go astray as they will and counter the material ones with parries and counterstrikes. And the calm was important, of course, for moral judgments, which could arise at any time.   
  
Thinking of Jaheira and Viconia made his thoughts wander to Imoen as he mulled the obvious contrasts. Imoen, dear Imoen, when frustrated or dejected he had but to think of her cheery gaze and warm smile to sooth or lift his spirits. He was grateful to her for this reason among many others.   
  
Viconia had mistaken them for lovers, not surprisingly, as presumably Jaheira and Khalid had at first unless Gorion's writings had told better. He hadn't even thought anything of sharing a bed with her until he'd had to ask Viconia what she meant by his _mrimmd'ssinss _. Although there had never really been a need in Candlekeep, with their own modest rooms at all, Imoen had been fond of occasionally sneaking into his room to lie with him, usually on the coldest nights, or those where she complained of having very strange and very disturbing dreams, which did happen to both of them more and more in the last few years, often the same nights. And now, on the road, they had each night, out of economy and comfort, for they now had great need of both.   
  
As he was running through the farms just west of the town, the soft feeling of natural earth beneath his boots was interrupted as one struck something hard. He stopped suddenly, and looked down, to notice a faint green glint. He knelt over the stop, brushing earth with his hands, to reveal more and more of a smooth, green surface. _Resembles those ankheg husks we got up around the Arm and sold in Beregost… _  
  
He gasped when he exposed enough of the alien object to recognize it. _Armor! A full suit of ankheg armor! _He gripped it, and strained as he ripped it from its earthy resting place, and as he did so a small, white glimmering object fell back to the ground. _And a pearl? Strange indeed. _  
  
He pocketed the pearl and held the armor up in the dim predawn light. It was beautifully crafted, and so light that it didn't even seem real. _Not a single sign of wear and tear. Must be magical too. I wonder how long it's been here. _  
  
"Whoever you were," he address the armor as if its previous owner were still inhabiting it, "Thank you. I'll use it well."   
  
The armor was so light that, donning it barely impacted his jog, and a short while later, passing by a farmhouse just across the river from the town, he saw a young woman with a face to rival the dead's, or perhaps as if she'd just seen one.   
  
"Something wrong, miss?" he slowly approached the lady, who wore long braided brown hair and a labor-worn peasant's dress.   
  
She sighed, and seeming welcome for the inquiry, answered, "I…wish things were better here on the farm. At least we're not miners."   
  
"How," Onyx mumbled under his breath, looking around at what to him seemed a beautiful, rustic landscape, with the calm river running by and glimmering in the near-dawn light, the trees swaying gently in the cool breeze, and trees and grasses growing about him, "Could anything be better than this pristine, pastoral setting? I myself soon will seek out the mines." _You know, sometimes I wonder if I'd have been happier as a ranger. _  
  
"Aye, we could have a crop, for starters," the woman sighed indignantly. _Oops, didn't mean to really say that out loud. _"See those crusted mounds of earth?" she pointed dejectedly at some of the more barren tills of earth. "They're all left over from last year's harvest. The sun's baked them firm and hard and the plow breaks at the very thought of trying to turn that tortured soil. My son tried pushing the new seeds in between the cracks but I doubt anything will come of it. Come this time next year, we'll all be living in the endless slums of Athkatla. And my husband, Joseph, is a miner and hasn't been heard from in days! So yes, I wish things were better than this here pristine, pastoral setting!"   
  
The woman looked as if she were about to sob, and Onyx turned towards her, holding up his hands apologetically. "I'm sorry, I just…I suppose I am very ignorant of the world. If you'll suffer my presence, you mentioned the difficulty of plowing, and…well, I'm not exactly an expert farmer, but perhaps I could but some weight behind it and give it a go? It would round out my morning workout nicely, and…it would do my heart well to pass back this way in the fall, and see a harvest come of it."   
  
"Enough!" she spat, and shed a tear in spite of herself, "Must you continue to mock me, a poor peasant, and you in your fancy-pants armor!" She turned away, and covered her face, and sobbed.   
  
"I mean it, miss," he sighed.   
  
They fetched the plow from her toolshed, and together fixed its snapped arms with spare wood, making the angle between them narrower so that it would be harder to control and to thus push through hard earth, yet harder to break. And then Onyx carried it back to the edge of the barren field, and after removing his armor and tunic, began to push it across the first unforgiving mound of dirt. He pushed, trying to optimize between sheer strength and control. He could easily snap the arms off the plow again with too much strength, but with not enough nothing would happen. At last, the edge of the mound shore under his carefully guided force, and he kept pushing it to apply steady pressure to the long raised mound, and soon he was striding at a slow but steady pace, tilling a row of the field.   
  
The woman gasped in disbelief, called to him in thanks, and disappeared briefly into the shed, returning a moment later with a bag of seed. As Onyx pushed along, she strode happily behind him, spreading the seed into the freshly tilled earth, which was much richer and loamier beneath the sun-baked surface.   
  
The went down row after row, each in turn yielding and becoming a purchase for new seeds, and just after sunrise, the field was done.   
  
"Thank you, sir," she smiled and waved goodbye as he donned his green armor and walked off, towards the Nashkel Inn and his doubtless stirring companions, "You will always be welcome at our table. If no sooner, return in the fall, and we will toast the harvest in your name!"   
  
He smiled over his shoulder and waved goodbye. "I do hope to return in the fall, miss!" _If only because I simply hope to live that long. _  
  
_Alas, we reap what we sow… _  
  
_But I was not meant for peaceful times, at least not yet, and I cannot take up the plow, for fortune hands me the sword._


	29. Art Terminates Life

**29. Art Terminates Life **  
  
Minsc laughed jovially. "Boo says you are all most welcome friends in butt-kicking this day and with paladins and clerics and fighters and druids and thiefves and bards kicking the same evil backsides the Minsc does, evil will be very sore indeed! Evil will have large red welts over its bottom, and evil will apply creams to its tender, bruised nethers, only to find the forces of righteousness have replaced its cream with more boots! And then evil's bum will really hurt and..."   
  
The other members were all looking dumbfounded at Minsc as he strung the uncharacteristically long and complicated but yet somehow very characteristic quote together. They had decided on a southerly course to reach the gnoll stronghold, and were wandering through wooded glasslands which were starting to give way to more parched, arid areas. As they came around the side of a rock outcropping, their concentration shifted to a figure on the path in front of them. He was dressed in gaudy, pompous clothing that screamed 'artist' and indeed seemed to be nearing completion of an admittedly well-crafted statue of an exceedingly beautiful elven woman. The subject, however, was not present, much to Garrick's voiced dismay.   
  
"Ahh, beauteous creature!" the lovestruck young sculptor sighed as he worked upon the statue's face and stared into it. "Never should I have stolen these emeralds, but there was nothing else that would capture the majesty of thing eyes! I did what must be done, for I have left my shop, forgotten all my commission, and spent all that I had. I must complete thee!"   
  
"This must be that Prism character we heard about in town," Jaheira whispered to Onyx and Khalid, who nodded. "The one who stole the two emeralds."   
  
"Wait, there is someone here!" Prism cried when he noticed them. "Who are you! 'Twas that relentless Greywolf who sent you, wasn't it?"   
  
"Ooh, Boo," Minsc muttered under his breath, "Remember that mean Greywolf man? It's good we found this man first, Greywolf had the Stench of Evil about him!"   
  
Onyx listened to Minsc and nodded. "Actually," he spoke to Prism, "He did not, but we...have similar goals, I imagine. I firstly congratulate you on this exceedingly beautiful sculpture here..." Prism beamed and gazed upon his statue again.   
  
"Bah!" Viconia scowled crossly while he admired the statue, folding her hands over the chest armored in the ankheg mail, "She's to...delicate! Surely such a pixie is not to the tastes of such a strong warrior! Perhaps I misjudged you, _jaluk _." Jaheira smirked and nodded along, then angrily whapped Khalid on the shoulder when she caught him looking slackjawed at the statue. Khalid blushed deeply and pretended to admire his own boots. Garrick simply kept staring slackjawed.   
  
"Don't drool, Garry!" Imoen giggled, and the bard blushed and closed his mouth.   
  
Onyx gritted his teeth with a degree of chagrin, and conitnued. "Good sir Prism, I'm afraid that stealing emeralds simply won't do. As dear as you hold you art so I do my own creed, and must return them to their rightful owner, and I'm afraid you are wanted…back in town. Please come with me, good artist, and I'll see you come to no harm."   
  
"You'll not take me yet, I beseech thee!" Prism cried and clutched the statue as if it might come to life and protect him. "I admit I stole the gems, but better they are the eyes of a work o' love than a fat woman's tawdry trinket. I will give you all else that is mine, if you would but forget my crime."   
  
"It IS quite a marvelous work!" Garrick piped up unhelpfully, causing everyone to sigh. "Why, the curve of the lips, the shoulders, and especially the..."   
  
"Prism, regardles of whether I agree with you, aesthetically," Onyx nodded as he interrupted Garrick, "That does not give you the right to..."   
  
"Oh please!" Prism cried, "I am but a few minutes from completion, and I cannot run from this place until my task is done. I have been using potions of speed to aid my work, and have not slept for days. She is beautiful, is she not? 'Tis a monument to my foolishness. I saw her but once, on the outskirts of Evereska, and said nothing. I let thee pass from mine eyes, and mine heart hath cursed me for it!"   
  
Garrick was listening to the story intently, seemingly enrapt and wanting to memorize the tale for his own later retelling, but the others were looking a bit bored. They snapped to attention, however, when a large, armored figure strode up from the opposite direction they'd come. "It is the mean man Greywolf!" Minsc cried.   
  
"I have come for you, Prism!" Greywolf bellowed. His face was stern and old and scarred, his hair metallic grey. He looked to have seen - and won- many, many battles, and held an obviously enchanted, jewel-pommeled sword that had probably been in his hand for many of them.   
  
"No! Not yet!" Prism cried helplessly. "My work is nearly done! Please, I implore you!"   
  
"Your sentiment is wasted on me, fool!" the man scoffed. "You are but gold in my purse. Do you make your situation worse by hiring help to protect you? Who are you fools?"   
  
"We," Onyx scowled at Greywolf, "Are in charge of this situation now. We found Prism first and mean to see him to the authorities. Peacefully."   
  
"See HIM to the authorities," Greyworlf snickered, "Ah, forgetful little tin-can-man, the bounty was not for him, but the emeralds. What happens to him is…at the finder's discretion."   
  
Greywolf rested his hand on his sword. Then, as he looked over Onyx disdainfully, suddenly his eyes bugged out. "Wait!" he shouted and pointed at Imoen. "I recognize you! It was you that stole a bounty rightfully mine! Prism will live a moment longer while I kill the lot of you!"   
  
"What are you talking about!?" Onyx cried, truly mystified, for it was of course Jade's physical description that Greywof was putting to Imoen. But this misled bounty hunter with his magical sword was charging the paladin nonetheless, meaning to decapitate first and ask questions later, or more likely not at all.   
  
Onyx brought his shield up to bock the blow, but went stumbling back from Greywolf's sheer might. Khalid began to draw his sword but Greyworld swung at him, hitting him hard across the side of the helmet and sending him to the ground. Imoen drew her short bow but couldn't get a shot in around Onyx, and Jaheira and Viconia began casting. Minsc roared and charged Greywolf with his two-handed sword held high, but the fierce bountyhunter used his shield to block the downward swing as it came, seeming unfazed by the enormous strength behind Minsc's blow, and then skewered the ranger through the chest with his shimmering sword, then kicked him off the blade and to the ground.   
  
Imoen and Garrick sent an arrow and a bolt flying at the bounty hunter, who all but failed to notice each as they lodged in his leathered chest, even as they drew blood. Onyx made another swing but Greywolf expertly parried it and made a stab of his own. Onyx barely managed to bring his shield in the way, but Greywolf quickly swung again low; hitting the inside of his knee with his sword and then sweeping his other foot with his boot. The sword didn't pierce his armor leggings, but his was tripped and went clanging to the ground. As another of Imoen's arrows glanced off his helmet, Greywolf turned to face Jaheira and Viconia as their spells completed, sending a yellow haze over and calling small vines up around his feet, neither of which seemed to faze him as he charged. He swung down at Jaheira, who tried to block with her quarterstaff, only to have it knocked from her hands, and his sword sliced into her armor and left a deep gash between her breasts. He kicked her in the stomach and sent her falling while Viconia swung Bassilus's hammer at him. He feigned aside, chuckling, and then stabbed low on her right side before she could get her shield over. The ankheg plate kept her from being impaled, but his sword came up half-circle whizzing around her armor, and opened her throat. His boot knocked out her leg and sent her to all fours.   
  
An arrow sank into his stomach, and grimacing, he looked up to face Imoen and Garrick, his face snarling with rage. Garrick's knees knocked, and instead of loading a bolt, firing a spell, or drawing a sword, he spun on one heel and dashed off, singing, "Brave, brave sir Garrick, sir Garrick led the way! Brave brave, Sir Garrick, sir Garrick ran away!"   
  
"Uh..oh" Imoen gasped. She barely had taken to drop her bow and draw the hobgoblin Zordal's magical shortsword, which whistled musically as she swung it up to parry Greyworlf's sword. She cried as he easily knocked it out of her hand, probably breaking her small wrist, and she dodged his next swipe, but then he caught her in the jaw with a swing of his shield, and she went sprawling to the ground.   
  
Behind him, Onyx rose, wincing, his knee screaming with pain and his leg twisted at an unnatural angle. He reached down, touching it, feeling it heal, and rising again, and felt a moment of calm though the battle was not over. He saw Greyworlf bringing his sword down upon a sprawled Imoen, surely to chop her in half right through her narrow waist, and everything went red. The next thing he knew he had his feet off the ground, and bare hands around Greywolf, throttling and tackling him and sending them both flying over Imoen and sprawling to the ground.   
  
Greywolf's sword went clattering across the stones as he fell under Onyx's weight, but he reached behind his head to wring the paladin around the neck, and the two rolled over and over each other. Greywolf snarled and cursed, blue veins showing on his head, and Onyx had lost himself in a mindless fury, grappling and choking the other one and lusting for bloodshed. The image of Imoen nearly cut in half playing over and over in his mind as he grappled the man around the neck. Greywolf was choking him back, and they growled and held not like men, but like beasts. Onyx felt his breath giving out and his larynx collapsing under the pressure of the man's fists, and his vision went completely red. He trembled, feeling death was near, embracing him like a lost father.   
  
NO. YOU WILL NOT COWER. _HE _SHALL COWER. HE SHALL COWER BEFORE YOU. THEY ALL SHALL.   
  
Onyx grasped the other man's neck and screamed. Greywolf's eyes bulged wide with either asyphxiation or terror, and his own breath escaped in a soprano wail. The older man's grip slackened, his hands pressed off the paladin's splintmailed chest in an effort to push himself away. His feet kicked frantically, trying to scamper across the soil and out of the paladin's grip. He broke it with a quick jerk, fell backwards, and crabwalked away as fast as possible. "Leave us!!" he shrieked, and got to his feet to turn and run.   
  
Abruplty he came to face a healed Jaheira, at the moment she swung her quarterstaff from one end, batting his face. The bounty hunter's face crunched in with the sound of a dozens of bones and teeth shattering, and then an able, healed Viconia was on her feet behind the bounty hunter, planting a dagger in the nape of his neck and licking her lips as she twisted. The great man fell, limp.   
  
"Your face..." she looked up at him worriedly, for it was bruised and bloodied with a number of Greywolf's punches.   
  
Onyx looked down at Imoen's limp wrist. "It's broken..." his mouth twitched, "That...bastard!" He looked Imoen in the eyes, his compassion turning to anger. "How dare he...."   
  
Imoen gasped in fright as his eyes flashed yellow, and his hands clasped gently over Imoen's wrist. Jaheira was kneeling by then, at her glowing touch the girl's wounds vanished. "Thank you," she sobbed. "That was so close." She wrapped arms around her guardian and her friend and they got to their feet.   
  
"I know," Onyx whispered. It was the first time he'd ever seen Imoen scared like this, and that alone was frightening. He too was nearly in shock. _One man...nearly took out seven of us. _His estimation of the dangerous nature of the world went up many notches.   
  
Viconia had now healed Minsc, and turned to Onyx with a conspiratorial grin. " _Faer, sargtlin? _I am impressed."   
  
The paladin frowned. "What?" Nearby, Jaheira had tended to Khalid, but remained kneeled over him gingerly without lifting her eyes to her charge and the drow.   
  
Viconia's thin white eyebrows creased. "You enchanted him with cowardice. I could sense the tingle," she licked her lips, "It always liked that one."   
  
Onyx was no less confused. "No, I wouldn't know how. I just...I don't know, he freaked out. And thank Lathander."   
  
Viconia smiled evilly. "I suspect your gratitude lies elsehwere."   
  
The paladin turned away, irritated for his confusion, and mad at her for it. "I don't know what in the hells you're talking about, crazy witch."   
  
The drow went livid, fuming. It briefly occured to her he hadn't dared to insult her before, which made her all the angier now. " _Jaed wael! _Ignorant fool! I spit upon you!"   
  
"Alas, my work is complete!" Prism cried and distracted everyone, apparently having resumed his feverish work upon the statue as soon as the fight had ended. He stepped aside from the now-finished statue, and the males in the party caught themselves looking slackjawed at it, earning a few glares from the females. "Take what you will from my possessions," Prism declared as he tried to run away, but collapsed to the ground and began breathing heavily, "But leave the sparkle in her eyes. O sweet creature. My effigy to thee is done. Perhaps our paths shall cross in distant Realms, and I shall find the courage to call thy name. Ellesime!"   
  
With that, Prism choked up a wad of phlegm and blood, fell down on the ground, and lay still.   
  
"Too many speed p-potions and no rest…he literally worked himself to death!" Khalid muttered in surprise and kicked one of the many empty potion bottles around the statue's feet.   
  
"Ellesime?" Viconia glared at the elven statue and seemed to ignore Prism's body.   
  
Jaheira snorted while looking down at the body, "If you ask me, it's a waste to lose your life sculpting someone, _especially _her."   
  
Onyx looked down at Prism with pity, and up at the statue. _A man so consumed by his masterpiece that he would die for it? It seems ridiculous, and yet...I have said that I would die for my ideals. _  
  
Viconia was appraising him as he appriased the elf woman's statue. _He's not looking at it like a lollygagging man enthralled by some siren, but as if he ponders something else _, she thought, but snarled, "Close your drooling jaw, pig, you know nothing of beauty. Let us move on."   
  
Minsc peered down at Greywolf's body and declared, "The brave friends of Minsc have defeated the mean mercenary of…meanness! Hamsters and rangers everywhere shall sing of this for generations to come! Well, perhaps not, as it all a day's work of such brave hero companions of Minsc and Boo!"   
  
"Oh yes!" declared Garrick as he conveniently reappeared, "They shall sing! I'll be sure of it! Why, this will make such an epic…"   
  
"You…COWARD!" Onyx, still fuming from Viconia, roared in Garrick's face, causing the bard the flinch spastically, "You ran off! You just tucked tail and ran when the rest of the party needed you most! You left Imoen's side! She could have been killed! She almost _was _killed!"   
  
Jaheira scowled at him as she got up, "You have shown yourself a buffoon over and over, and now we see you are a coward too! If you want to be an adventurer, start acting like one!" Beside her, Khalid nodded silently.   
  
"Pathetic," Viconia simply drawled.   
  
Garrick looked at his feet as they entire party glared at him, obviously wishing he could disappear. Again. "Sorry," Onyx sighed, "I…didn't mean to scream at you. But I did mean what I said. He was just one man, and he nearly took up all down. It's...scary." He glanced over to Greywolf's body and sword. "I don't suppose you could make yourself useful. This sword of Greywolf's. Obviously magical...."   
  
Viconia grinned. "Yes, you've spent hours upon the road making my ears bleed with weaponslore, now put it to use."   
  
Garrick eagerly hunched over Greyworlf, happy to have a chance to be useful. He studied the blade for a moment, mumbling, reciting lyrics that described this weapon in accurate if flowery language. His face lit up. "Why yes!" he gasped with delight. "It…'tis a legendary blade!" he looked up at the paladin. "A truly legendary blade!"   
  
"More specifically..." Jaheira sighed.   
  
" _Varscona! _" Garrick exclaimed. "Tis mightily enchanted, and bites with winter's chill!"   
  
"I've heard of it too," Viconia smiled, "Used by a priestess of my goddess for the sacrificial rites of Feast of the Moon ceremonies. When she passed on, it was buried within her chest. She was to be exhumed in a season, reborn in a few form, but cult wars killed those who should have. It is said she did reawaken, entrapped and enraged, her tomb now a prison, and when this blade finally was exhumed after hundreds of years, she was no more. Perhaps one with the blade."   
  
"Interesting," Onyx held it aloft, and it glinted in the sun. He could feel the cold radiating from the blade. "Khalid. You should wield it. You're a more experienced swordsman than I."   
  
"Oh, I c-c-c-ouldn't," he stared nervously, almost superstitiously, at the sword. "It's yours, Onyx."   
  
"That's right! And Minsc prefers two-handed swords anway! Isn't that right, Boo?"   
  
"Very well," Onyx put his old sword in his pack, and sheathed Varscona at his hip. _Now it shall channel my rage, and bury itself again in the chest of the man with the glowing eyes._


	30. A Boy and his

**30. A Boy And His...? **  
  
"A sad little boy," Xan drawled, elven eyes seeing further than those of his company, "Ahead of us, wandering, lost. 'Tis truly a disparaging sight, more so for it reflects our own aimless, endless journeying..."   
  
The elf could hear the boy too. He was crying and calling, "Here wittle doggie. Awww, why won't you come home…"   
  
"Shut yer whinin' lips, fairy-boy," Montaron spat, perking his ears, "Ye right though, he does sound a mite pathetic...perhaps he have lunch-money to share though, eh?"   
  
Within a few minutes they had traversed the wooden fieldland to the boy. As soon as he saw the adventurers, he came bounding up to them, a redheaded boy of about ten with tears streaming down his freckly face. "'Scuse me!" he called. "I ever so sowwy to bother, but could you help me? I've lost my little dog and I can't find him. He's probably ever so scared right now!" With that he resumed his crying.   
  
"Where are your parents?" Jade asked the boy with impatient compassin. "It's dangerous out here alone, you know." _I know best of all, kiddo. Most of my encounters involve people trying to kill me. _  
  
"Parents?" the boy pronounced the word as if he'd never heard it before, but then his face lit up. "Yes, I'm here with some rewatives, but they away for a moment and I'm lost. We are thinking of moving here someday, but I don't know my way awound yet. I can get home ok, but I just gotta get Rufie back! Please, could you help?"   
  
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Jade rolled her eyes.   
  
"Oh!" the boy hopped up and down, "Thank you vewy much! I know he'll be awright now! Poor Rufie isn't used to strange places an' people! You'll know him, cuz he's just the cutest li'l thing! Here," the boy reached into a pocket on his scruffy little tunic, "Take this as well. His favorite chew toy. Thank you kind adult-people!"   
  
He tossed an object Jade reflexively caught. She nearly dropped the object in surprise after an inspection. At first glance, it was an ordinary canine chew toy, but beneath the grisle, she swore she could see the glean of some unearthly metal.   
  
She was about to toss it and tell the kid to scram, when Xzar piped up, asking to see the grisly bauble. She shrugged, and tossed it over, and the party continued on their way.   
  
"Well played," Edwin gingerly patted the lambchop sideburns that now flanked his jutting slimed-gelled do, "The quickest way to dispose of such a brat. (Outside the magic missile, one supposes, but even my exceptional repertoire must be conserved for the gnolls. And the Wychalarn.)"   
  
The boy had barely disappeared in the trees behind them when a heavily armed party of five appeared ahead.   
  
"Travelers, halt!" called the one in the center of the chevron-formation they made, with the deep voice of a woman used to commanding those around her, and a funny accent. She had an undelicate face that might have still been beautiful were it not creased with arrogance, held a glowing sword, and wore bright, obviously-also-magical yellowish leather armor which smugly contoured her large, athletic body. "You trespass quite deeply into Amnish territory. Perhaps you have come to spy upon our supposed troop build-up. It's quite funny, the stupid notions you northern barbarians can get stuck in your heads!"   
  
_Every day, _Jade sighed inwardly, _I realize more and more just how sheltered Candlekeep was. Is the real world really this dangerous, or am I unusually ugly or something? Does my chainmail have 'fight me' painted across the back? _  
  
"Blow off," was her outward reply.   
  
The woman scoffed. "Very well, barbarians. Know that I am Sendai, my entourage is Delog, Alexander," she nodded dismissively at the two medium-build longbowmen flanking her, "and Vax and Zal," she named the two scrawnier fellows at the left and right of her chevron, one of whom like her carried a sword, the other wore bracers and held several darts.   
  
'Zal' grinned and in a high, nasal, whiny voice proclaimed, "Yep, I'm Zal, the fastest dart thrower ever in the west!"   
  
Jade laughed disdainfully, " _The fastest dart thrower in the west _! That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard!" All but Xan snickered. The elf whimpered, sensing the pessimistic inevitable.   
  
"Why," Sendai snarled indignantly, lifting her sword. "It seems that we have stumbled upon some berserkers. I had suspected as much when I caught your scent a few moments ago, but your behavior clinches it. Delog! Alexander! Vax and Zal! Let us make short work of these peasants! Kiyaaa!"   
  
There was no more time on need for words. Sendai charged with her glowing longsword held aloft, and Jade dashed forward to meet it with her golden bastard sword, calling her strange power again with raw emotion, only half-aware of it. Delgod and Alexander flanking Sandai were quick and shot arrows at her, two were deflected as her Shield shimmered, but four punctured her chainmail with ease. As hot, sharp pain screamed from between her ribs, she was barely able to parry Sendai's powerful overhead blow, and vaguely aware of and grateful for Kagain and Branwen rushing up on her flanks to force the two longbowmen to melee.   
  
Vax charged Montaron with his sword held high, screaming a nasal battle-cry that sounded more like a child's temper tantrum, and the halfling charged back, and darted right through the man's legs before his sword came down, hamstrining him with the enchanted shortsword from Mulahey's chest. The man toppled forth over his useless leg, howling, and the halfling hairpinned his dash, leaping atop the prone man's back and stabbing the man with murderous glee.   
  
On the other flank, Vax perforated Edwin's robes with half a dozen darts before an acid arrow and a jet of flame screamed from the hands of Xan and Xzar. "Oh Agannazar, you shouldn't have," Xzar giggled as Vax burned, screamed horribly, and fell. Edwin sneered, annoyed more at the darts' damage to his robes than his flesh.   
  
Delgod and Alexander had switched to swords just in time to meet Branwen and Kagain. The cleric's spiritual hammer shattered Delgod's tainted blade and then his shoulder, and she rammed her shield into his face. When he fell, she curtailed his spasms with a blow that squished his skull like a grape. Kagain raised his shield to catch the mundane overhead swing of Alexander, amputated his left leg beneath the knee, and when the man toppled left, a second axe-chop cut off his sword-hand, then a third cleft open his chest.   
  
Jade, with a quartet of their enchanted arrow bristling from her body, was weakening and barely able to keep Sendai's sword from finding purchase. Weapons crossed, the arrogant Amnish woman sensed the weakness and knocked Jade prone with a kick to the gut. She circled to behead the fallen young lady, barely noticing Xan's charm spell and Xzar's magic missiles. Montaron intercepted her, guarding Jade's upper body and stabbing at Sendai's kneecaps, and as Sendai stopped and reeled back. It bought Branwen the time to turn from the departed Delgod, and crack Sendai in the side of the head. The woman nearly lost her balance, and before regaining initiative hacks from Montaron and Kagain had her down. The bloodthirsty duo didn't stop until the tall woman was mutilated beyond recognition.   
  
Jade was dimly aware of the battle's end, and Branwen kneeling over her, the healing spells pushing the arrowheads up like splinters as the flesh mended behind.   
  
"Uncoordinated steel-monkeys," Edwin harrumpfed, glaring over the party's warriors and lastly Jade, "You drew all their fire yourself."   
  
"So did you, General Odesseiron," Jade snickered, taking obvious notice of the vain Red Wizard's punctured robes as Branwen healed him.   
  
Xzar lucidly appraised the equipment. Sendai's longsword was indeed magical, but Jade liked her hand-and-a-half blade and none of her companions were proficient with large swords. Her enchanted, golden-studded leather armor had apparently once been the property of a rogue Telbar, but now the rogue Montaron would wear it, as well as Zal's bracers, which apparently had been contributing to his still-feeble claim of being 'the best dart-thrower in the west.' Delgod's and Alexander's enchanted arrows found their way into Jade's quivers, and their composite longbows were nonmagical but still superior to that she possessed.   
  
"Ruff! Ruff!"   
  
Before they could be on their way, a spotted brown-and-white dog of nondescript breeding came bounding out of a pushing, large ears flopping and pink tongue wagging, scampering up to Xzar. The necromancer, giggling, held out the grisly 'chew-toy' and the dog drooled all over the hem of his robe, looking up at it and whining hungrily.   
  
"Ditch the toy..." Jade ordered, but then the boy appeared. Jade raised a scarlet eyebrow. The battle had only taken a few minutes; the small boy couldn't reasonably have trekked nearly as fast as they and caught up.   
  
"RUFIE!!!" the freckled kid coddled his dog. "Whose a fuzzy Rufie? Whooooo's a fuzzy little guy?" He grinned up at the party, and Jade could swear his brown eyes flashed red for a moment. "Thank you ever so much! I better take this lost little puppy home right away. Here, take this," he kid flung another unidentifiable object to the grass. "It's another of his chew things, but we can get more where we're going. Thanks again."   
  
The party looked down at this new object. A human skull, with two large fanglike holes in it. They shuddered (except for Xzar, who laughed merrily), and when they glanced up again, the boy and Rufie were gone. Rather, before them stood a hobgoblin from hell: an ogre-sized bipdel creature with a blood-red robe, large, clawed arms and legs with black, leathery skin, and a hideous face, full of dripping fangs and beady fire-red eyes. Next to it was a chimeraesque, horse-sized 'dog' with three heads, flame-red fur, and a snake for a tail. Little jets of flame escaped from its six total nostrils as it exhaled, and its six eyes gleamed fiery orange.   
  
"What the..." Jade's jaw nearly hit the grass. She had a vauge feeling that if her brother had been present, he would have been blown off his feet with overloaded evil-vision. Even she would swear she felt it.   
  
"TIME TO GO HOME, RUFIE," the bipedal monster bellowed to the others, "YOU'LL LIKE THE NINE HELLS MUCH BETTER THAN THESE COLD CLIMES."   
  
A portal appeared just behind the pair and swallowed them. Just before it closed, Jade peered through it, to see a horrific landscape of black, burnt, jagged land, a sky of fire and swirling ash, and twisted, shadowy shapes scampering about. Overpowering evil radiated out, and she felt like she was standing with her face in a furnace.   
  
Branwen prayed, crossing her hands over herself. Kagain swore. Montaron chuckled, but nervously. Edwin mumbled studiously, something about 'gating'. Xzar laughed hysterically. Xan fainted.   
  
_I'm staring into the Hells, _Jade gaped, _Oh. My. Gods. _  
  
While a blue-haired humanoid danced across the landscape juggling a harp and two shortswords, the portal closed as quickly as it'd opened.   
  
"If I wake tomorrow and never remember this again," Jade whispered, "I shall die a happier lady."


	31. If a Dryad's Tree Falls

**31. If a Dryad's Tree Falls... **  
  
Viconia was half-blind in the daylight, and cursing it. Jaheira held hands with and was engrossed with her husband, and vice versa.   
  
"Monsters!" Minsc the ranger saw them first. "Very...happy monsters. Boo does not sniff evil just yet."   
  
"What the..." Onyx pointed a gauntleted finger to the east, and heads turned to see an xvart, a kobold, and a tasloi crossing a shallow stream. "I don't sniff evil either. Er, see it."   
  
The other party members readied ranged weapons, but the three tiny monsters seemed...less than hostile, somehow. Certainly less than a threat.   
  
The troglodytic trio took no heed of the adventurers as they ambled in forth, yapping to themselves.   
  
"So while you two were still up in the suite," the kobold yipped his companions, "I and those she-kobold groupies we'd met backstage after the Five Flagons show go up to check out the roof Jacuzzi..." the xvart and the tasloi gave soprano chuckles and the kobold continued, "...and, well, let's just say they don't call us Yipping Demons for nothing! Grrrrrr yip yip yip yip bark bark!!! All night long, baby!" The three little monsters all broke into wild, ear-piercing laughter and exchanged high-threes-and-fours.   
  
"Hey, what's up, hu-man?" the kobold called at as they drew nearer the party and took heed of them. "I'm Larry! This is my brother Darryl," he nodded toward the xvart, "And this is my oother brother Darrly. We're real pleased to meet you!"   
  
Onyx exchanged confused looks with Viconia, Jaheira, and Khalid. "Uhh….Larry, Darryl, and Darrly? Uh...hi."   
  
"Man," the tasloi 'Darryl' giggled, "Larry, I told you these guys would be the wrong generation!" The xvart 'Darryl' nodded its tiny blue head.   
  
"Wait..." Garrick suddenly burst through to the front of the party, and looked down at the waist-high creatures with wide-eyed adoration. " _The _Larry, Darryl, and Darryl!? Oh man…wow! I'm your biggest fan! C-can I have your autograph!?"   
  
"Hey," Larry chuckled to his friends, "These folks want us to sign an ee-lek-tronik autograph for 'em!"   
  
"Sure, dude," the xvart Darrly squeaked, "What's your name?"   
  
"It's...uh...it's uh...G-G-Garrick!"   
  
"Whoa, far out," the tasloi Darrly laughed, "You're with the Dale Wind Troubadours, weren't you?"   
  
"Yeah!" Garrick gasped as if he'd just been anointed a deity. "Well, uh, was, see, they turned into more of a larceny outfit lately."   
  
"I hear ya, man," Larry yipped, "Totally not cool."   
  
The Darryls gathered around, and the kobold produced a scroll, a strange metallic writing device, and scribbled something before passing it to each Darryl. "Oh..wow!" Garrick's eyes glazed over as he was handed the scroll. He looked ready to faint, and Onyx ready to catch him peered over the bard's shoulder, and read the scroll.   
  
_To Garrick and friends with love.   
  
-Larry, Darrly, & Darryl _  
  
"Wow...wow," Garrick gushed down at the tiny trio, "I know all your guys's songs. Vocals, harp-riffs, even percussion."   
  
"Right on, right on," the xvart Darryl grinned, "'Bout time someone recognized the drummer!"   
  
"Hey man," the tasloi Darryl crooned, "First of next month, we're gonna be live in Baldur's Gate at the Helm & Cloak, kicking off our Gods-Are-Dead Faerun Tour '68. You should totally come check us out."   
  
"I'm there," Garrick sighed dreamily as the kobold, the xvart, and the tasloi laughed and started on their way. The bard called after them, "Larry, Darryl, and Darryl rule!"   
  
---   
  
An hour later, the party had stopped, eating lunch and washing themselves around a small pool at the base of a waterfall.   
  
"What's that little girl doing on top of the waterfall?" Jaheira looked up the sheer rock face and the cluster of pines atop the steep hill.   
  
"Whomever he is, I'm sure he's not worth it," Viconia muttered.   
  
"No no," Jaheira sighed, " a said _girl _...oh. Ha ha," she clamped her mouth shut as the drow's joke dawned on her.   
  
A little girl alone in the middle of the woods being an odd thing, the party hiked up the side of the hill that the sheer face jutted off from, and then, stepping carefully through shallow water than flowed over the rocks from the waterfall, made their way to where the girl stood. "Hello, miss," Onyx took off his helmet and smiled down at the girl, "What's your name? Are you lost?"   
  
The blonde-ponytailed girl, who had been standing suicidally close to the edge of the waterfall and staring over it, turned to gaze up at the paladin with red-cheeks and tear-streaked eyes, sobbed "Pixie...my cat, she was playing close to the water and slipped...* sniff* ...I hope she's alright."   
  
"Um," Imoen bounded up and crouched in front of the girl, while pulling a wet, furry, and limp object out of her pack, "This cat?" The feline in question was definently not playing possum.   
  
Onyx was prepared to do the best to console the girl in her inevitable outburst of tears, but strangely, she looked quite happy to see her cat's lifeless body. "It's alright," she smiled, "She's done this before. I guess Daddy will have to raise her again. Um, thanks! Here, have this scroll!"   
  
She produced a piece of parchment for Imoen, who handed to Garrick and exclaimed gleefully that it would protect against undead.   
  
"So..." Onyx asked his friend as they strode away from the top of the waterfall hand in hand, "You just found a dead cat and...kept it?"   
  
"Oh yeah!" Imoen giggled, and looked up at her friend, smiling. "I found it behind the spray at the base of the waterfall, when we were washing off during our little rest. I kept it, cuz, you know, anything as weird as a dead cat in a waterfall is bound to be what someone nearby is looking for."   
  
"Huh?" Onyx scratched his head.   
  
"Adventuring humor," Jaheira told her charge, chuckling in spite of herself, "I was telling Imoen about this sort of thing before you showed up for breakfast this morning. You'll get used to it."   
  
"Well," Garrick suddenly pointed at a figure approaching, "I could sure get used to that!"   
  
Jaheira immediately groaned and shot Garrick a disapproving gaze, for she recognized the figure as an orange-haired dryad. She wore an extremely sparing blue 'robe' that covered no more than culturally necessary, showing off most of a figure that was, as with the sirens in the Beregost temple, an epitome of feminine beauty.   
  
"Yes, G-G-Garrick, that's generally one of the more lauded parts of adventuring," Khalid added absentmentedly, then when his wife's gaze practically disintegreated him, smiled at her tenderly and added, "Especially f-for those of us who've already f-found our dryad." The Calimshani warrior succeeded in melting the druid's harsh gaze into one of love.   
  
"You know," Onyx remarked offhandedly, mostly to Imoen and Viconia beside him, "In a way, this whole 'female creatures of absolutely perfect beauty' thing is...boring. Just looks too _unreal _or something."   
  
"Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if not everything about her was _real _," Viconia muttered under her breath, fumed at the perfectly shaped dryad. She then glared at Onyx and out loud declared with faux-misunderstanding, "Were you trying to suggest, _jaluk _, that _I _am boring?"   
  
Onyx played the game he usually did with the drow cleric. "You know, Vico," he twisted his mouth as if contemplating her for the first time, "I hadn't really thought of it one way or theother." Of course, this was a lie, of course he'd noticed her beauty, and of course a highborn drow female with hundreds of years of experience in Underdark politics could see straight through the lie of a twenty-year-old paladin who'd grown up in a safe, cloistered library. But the thinly veiled insult wasn't the point. That he _chose _to was.   
  
Viconia snorted haughtily. "Thank you for making my point, barbarian. Though I have noticed your gaze fails to settle to me. Do tell, is that you are blind, insane, repressed, retarded, or of...alternate persuation? Tastes of in these matters need no culturing - fortunately for you, who have had none."   
  
Onyx chuckled, "Blind by elven standards, foolish by Sharran standards, repressed by drow standards, retarded by mindflayer standards, and persuaded elsewhere." He touched his breast, referring to the lock of curly golden human hair that he had previously showed her to be kept there.   
  
"Then," Viconia sneered, "I was correct on all fronts. As usual."   
  
Onyx grinned. "I like it when I can let you pocket an insult so retort with a self-congratulation. It's usually a convenient way to end the argument."   
  
"Saying such a thing out loud just undid exactly that, idiot _rivvil _."   
  
"What, Boo?" Minsc asked the hamster upon his shoulder while looking at the dryad. "What are these birds and bees you speak of? Minsc sees no birds or bees anywhere! Did that dead cat eat them?"   
  
Imoen giggled hysterically, but Onyx gazed at the dryad once it reached him, less at its hypnotic body than the terrified look upon its face.   
  
"Please, kind spirits," the orange-haired dryad begged him, "A wondrous ancient oak is in peril. It is about to be attacked by two who wound defile the majesty of nature. They have avoided my charms, and must be stopped before irreparable harm is done. Would you heed my plea?"   
  
Onyx, Jaheira, and Khalid, not surprisingly, immediately exchanged nodded glances. "Ooo," Imoen's round face frowned with concern, "Those meanies!"   
  
"Little Imoen is right, Boo!" Minsc declared indignantly, "Rangers must liberally apply buttkicking when little forest sisters are in trouble!"   
  
"Alas!" cried Garrick, "The classic tale of the poor wood-nymph in distress! You know, I have heard of an enchanted shortbow whose story is such…"   
  
Viconia snarled as the nymph looked up at Onyx earnestly. "The nymph _would _pick the paladin to plead to! The waif knows her tricks."   
  
"A druid," Jaheira scowled at the drow, "Would be no less adamant in her defense - if," she winked at Viconia and lowered ver voice beneath her human charge's hearing, "perhaps for more honest reasons."   
  
"Lead us," an oblivious Onyx nodded simply to the dryad, who smiled, turned around, and led the party past the scattered trees of the forest, and soon they came across an especially majestic, and somehow feminine, looking oak tree. Near its base stood two burly, thuggish looking armored men holding axes, and looking aat the tree hungrily. They looked rather similar, probably brothers, and the lighter-haired one called out to the party.   
  
"Hey dere," he yelled with a heavy drawl, "I'm Caldo and dis is my brother Krumm."   
  
"Of course," Viconia snickered, "Something tells me their parents were siblings as well."   
  
"Wow," Krumm guffawed, "How'd you know?" Then he peered at Viconia carefully, and nudged his brother, "Hey lookie Caldo! We got ourselves a darkie-elf! Wouldya believe...?"   
  
"Please state your business," Onyx cut him off with stern faux-politeness while Viconia snarled ferally.   
  
Caldo snorted, looking at the paladin and pointing at the tree with his axe. "We think dis here's a magie tree, a hyuk, a hyuk! Cuz it's all alone up here n' so big. Probably got gnomes or pixies," he said the words with a child's wonder, "Or sumthin' in it, so we're gonna bust it down ant take any treaure! You wanna help? It's a big tree, probably got enough gold fer alluh us, a hyuk, a hyuk!"   
  
_Give them a chance. _Onyx smiled politely, "Now, you don't really want to do this. Just think of how beautiful this tree is, and what a beautiful dryad it's home to," he gestured to his orange-haired new companion. "If you cut it down, she'll die, and I cannot allow that."   
  
Caldo and Krumm each scratched their heads, causing generous dandruff to rain down, processing his statement. "Heeeeeey," Krum whistled, "This guy's pretty smart, Caldo! Lookie at that dryad," his tongue lolled out and he began to drool on himself, "He's right! We _should _keep her alive..."   
  
"Um, that's not what I meant..." Onyx winced.   
  
"...Fer now, a hyuk, a hyuk," Caldo grinned, ignoring the paladin, his insipid-but-predatory expression matching his brother's. "But I called fer first," With that he lunged toward the dryad.   
  
"As you wish," Onyx stated flatly, and bolted forward to intercept the man. "You'll be first."   
  
"Wot the..." Caldo raised his shield and swung his wood-axe, but Onyx blocked the axe with his own shield and cleft straight through his opponent's with Varscona, shearing half of the man's hand off on the cleave without stopping. Krumm lunged to his brother's defense, but Minsc lumbered into that man's path, nearly as large as the dryad's tree.   
  
"IF BAD-MEN HURT LITTLE DRYAD-FRIEND THEN BAD MEN DIEEEEEEEE!" the ranger roared, froth spraying Krumm's face while one falling cleave of his gigantic two-handed sword split Krumm forehead to crotch.   
  
_HE WOULD HARM YOUR PRECIOUS, INNOCENT DRYAD. HE WOULD DESPOIL HER. KILL HIM... _  
  
His face impassive and cold, Onyx put more strength into his follow-through after chopping off half the hand, and drove Varscona on, clean through Caldo's head, and not stopping, echoed Minsc with a cleave straight down the center of the man.   
  
"Now let's see you call her first!!" he screamed bitterly as he brought the sword clean through to the air between the man's thighs, and the body halves fell apart, each landing cleft-side-up to display gore that had been frozen, unbleeding, by Varscona. The paladin let his sword and shield drop, and feel kneeling to the grass, holding his head and groaning.   
  
"Sartglin!" Viconia snapped forward. "Are you..."   
  
"He's fine," Jaheira stared down at her kneeling charge and the drow crouched over him, her face of one who knows more than they say. Khalid nodded quietly, but rather than the confused horror of Imoen and Garrick and Minsc, he looked on like his wife with grave but unsurprised concern.   
  
"Thanks Viccy, but I'm fine," Onyx removed his helm as he rose, and Viconia actually seemed to overlook the nickname as she studied him like a professional healer. "Just a little...enraged."   
  
"Ah, good friend," Minsc, calm again, slapped him on the back, so hard his eyes bulged, "Minsc understands! Seeing some cruel men treat a little woodland sister so makes Minsc very very angry too! Sometimes we must strike the flint of vigilance with the steel of resolve to light the tinder of goodness and blow with the breath of freedom to stoke the flames of righteous action! With mighty berserker fury!" Boo squeaks at the top of his tiny lungs.   
  
"That's...uh, beautiful...Minsc..." Imoen's eyebrows and mouth twisted, and she smiled encouragingly.   
  
While Onyx took deep, slow breaths, Khalid nervously looked at his discomforted wife, Garrick sneaked a peek at the 'beauteous creature', Imoen giggled, and Viconia scoffed, Minsc and the dryad grinned and hugged like long-lost siblings. The ranger loudly proclaimed, "Comraderie, adventure, and steel on steel! The stuff of legends, right Boo?" The hamster hopped off his shoulder and into the dryad's orange hair, and seemed to dance with a bright singing canary nestling there.


	32. Land of 1000 Gnolls

When he is best, he is a little worse than a man;   
And when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.   
  
-William Shakespeare   
  
  
  
  
**32. Land of 1000 Gnolls **  
  
Jade's party was camped out on the north bank of a river, across which the gnoll stronghold itself loomed, visible even in the darkness, a shadow blocking out stars halfway to the zenith of the night sky. They had a small campfire going, and most of the group sat around it. Xzar was telling ghost stories (and summoning a few ethereal spirits to give the accounts first-hand), earning a few chuckles from Montaron and nervous shrieks from Xan. Kagain was merely using the firelight to count the party's money, and Branwen listened on boredly, threatning to Turn each ghost as she grew tired of its hackneyed yarn, causing the spectral undead themselves to be the frightened ones, and then return to their afterlife Planes to tell their ghoulish associates frightening 'Human Stories' of the Tempest-Tempered Turning Tempusian. Only Edwin sat outside the circle, muttering something about his simian companions, his nose buried deep in his gold-leaf spellbook, back toward the fire both to illuminate the pages and to shun any company, except his own conversation with himself.   
  
Though within the circle, Jade sat quietly too. Mulling over the day's events, since the 'high point' of the 'boy' and his 'dog', or Barghest and his Hellhound as Edwin had later informed.   
  
First, crossing the bridge of that other stream, there had been Neville, self-proclaimed 'fairest of all fair bandits.' He was, at least, fairer than the five hobgoblin archers hiding in the brush behind him. Luckily, a hold spell from Branwen had frozen four of them, the fifth had shot for the cleric, never getting a shot through her armor before being brained with a spiritual hammer, and Neville himself was overpowered by the two-on-one of Jade and Kagain while the others peppered him with bolts and darts.   
  
Then there had another annoying, incompetent bandit party, the couple Teyngan and Jemby, and their hobgoblin 'friend' Zekar. They'd demanded money. What they'd gotten was trapped in Xzar's inaugural Web spell, to the necromancer's very proud delight. Zekar had been unable to charge and been beaned and performated by Jade's arrows and Branwen's bullets, Teyngan's clerical powers hadn't kept him healthy for long against the bolts and axes of the miserly midgets Kagain and Montaron, and Jemby hadn't gotten a single spell of her own off under the 'arcane firing squad', as Jade had dubbed her three wizards - Xzar the hallucinating paranoid-delusional Necromancer in the Acid Green cape, Xan the sickly manic-depressive Enchanter in the Shrinking Violet robe, and Edwin the egomaniacal obsessive-compulsive Conjurer in the Royal Red cowl.   
  
Then there had been the xvart village. Her party had been walking along, into the lower, rocky foothills of the Cloudpeaks on their way to the stronghold, and found themselves at the edge of a cluster of hovels, which turned out to be populated with what must have been one hundred xvarts. _You call us monster! _Nexlit the xvart screeched at her. _But you attack us when we do nothing to you! Ursus protect us. You the monster! _  
  
The battle had been easy enough, xvarts being mowed by the warriors like grass while Xan enchanted them into napping in droves with sleep spells. Pretending he didn't need any pointers from Xzar, Edwin had burned down the village with his first Aganazzar's Scorcher. The necromancer and conjurer had then found mutual amusement in taunting Xan with the prospect of the Fireballs _they _would surely be casting within a tenday. 'Ursus' had been found in his cave, hibernating, easily dispatched and netting Branwen an enchanted flail. Hacking the pathetically weak xvarts down left and right with her golden bastard sword had almost been...fun. The smell of their blood invogorating. Jade was moved to fond memories of the summer kobold-scourings with her brother and their half-orcish friend Grom among a few others, under the instructive eyes of Tethtoril. But now Nexlit's words echoed in her head again. _You the monster! _  
  
And then there had been Laurel the paladin. Smiling at Jade and explaining her crusade. _"Gibberlings are a plauge that must be wiped from the Sword Coast." _There hadn't been much time for pondering this during the onslaught of the hostile horde, but now Jade sat and thought with a knotted stomach. If she hadn't cut Nexlit clean in half with her bastard sword, she's swear he was whispering in her ear then too. _You the monster! _  
  
After finishing off a ghost story involving two human teenagers and a hobgoblin with a hook for a hand, which left Montaron in stiches, Xan shivering with his head buried in his cowl like an ostrich, Kagain smoking his pipe indifferently, and Branwen grumbling something about squeamish mainlanders, Xzar peered lucidly at Jade, who sat next to him, while Montaron next to him started up another ghost story about a necromancer named 'Poah' with a beating heart buried in his basement. Given the content of the story, Jade was comforted by her own deathly-arts practioner's fixed attention to her.   
  
"Something troubling you?" he asked her in a clinical whisper.   
  
She looked up at her childhood friend and smiled. "It's that thing I did with Mulahey, and the Amnish today...it just doesn't make any sense."   
  
Xzar nodded. "The Shield spell. It would seem you have some sort of innate ability, mommy."   
  
Neither of them noticed as, from outside the circle, Edwin suddenly lifted his nose out of his spellbook and peered with beady black eyes at Jade and Xzar, his bushy eyebrows piqued with interest.   
  
"I can't say I mind extra power," Jade twisted her mouth, "But I don't like not knowing what's happening."   
  
The necromancer bit his knuckles, but stayed calm. "Some people just have these things you know. Magic in the blood. Like sorcerers. But your metal armor didn't seem to hinder you at-all, did it? No no nno and not today! Not like the sorcerers. Though some can, with practice. Armored arcana. Quite a feat, yes. Curious, curious. Perhaps the Dukes of Dust and their perriwinkle seers will understand..."   
  
Xzar relapsed into disjointed rambling, and Jade merely looked down and sighed. While Kagain, Montaron, and Branwen continued swapping stories, the Thayvian furtively peered over the top of his spellbook at Jade. His eyes peeking out of his skirt again, so did the Greycloak.   
  
Jade shook her head, and ran her fingers through her scarlet hair. "Xzar, what's a monster?"   
  
She'd spoke aloud, and the others, having just finished their tale, all turned to look at the tattooed youth with the spiky blonde hair, who nodded sagely, and rested a chin on his fist.   
  
"In the beginning, all was dark, and void..."   
  
----------------   
  
In the chaotic evil plane of Tarterus, the spirit of Boris ran in a pack with many other deceased Malarites, all being hunted for sport by their common patron in life, and his troupe of vicious and eternally hungry pets, the Beasts of Malar. The Thayvian tracker was in his fourth night of this supposedly eternal fate, but watching lazily from a high perch in a tree nearby, was a fellow who had at the last Feast of the Beast spoken with him and recorded his tale, after himself hopping from the Sixth Hell just this day, if there was just a thing in the lower planes. Chewing a leftover roast leg of unicorn, the tiefling vainly brushed back his flowing blue hair with his quill before it returned to the parchment to continue embellishing the tale of the dark ranger, his scribe growing fascinated with the yet-living characters and larger events alluded to ere its abrupt ending.   
  
BORIS   
  
Thou art but monster, I shall be thy fall!   
  
GNAMESH   
  
No, O human, monsters are we all.   
  
_BORIS swings, GNAMESH disarms and drives halberd through chest of BORIS. Exeunt. _  
  
-----------------   
  
Dawn broke over the gnoll stronghold.   
  
The party that had formed grown from Onyx and Imoen came to a wide bridge over the river that surrounded the stronghold, almost like a boat. The river made a steep canyon below the bridge, and it looked a rather unpleasant place to fall. The swift, violent current and sharp rocks would doubtless tear a hapless swimmer to shreds. They had ranged weapons loaded and ready as they warily set foot upon the bridge, and sure enough, two ogres seemed to be standing menacingly at the other end.   
  
"That's funny," Onyx muttered, staring down his drawn arrow, "In the stories, trolls guard the bridges."   
  
"Stop!" one of the ogres roared, pounding his morning star against his palm. "Me Gnarl, this Hairtooth! This our bridge, you pay to walk it!"   
  
"Yeah, you pay..." Haitooth slobbered as he thought, "200 for all heads, or lose heads! Yeah!"   
  
Looking Gnarl in the eye - by lining up his arrow with it - Onyx called, "No deal!"   
  
Hairtooth looked at Gnarl for a moment, and one could almost see his mental gears turning. Slowly. "O.K., maybe 200 gold too much. Maybe you pay...100 gold!"   
  
Gnarl laughed, "100 gold for all heads, or lose heads! Pretty good deal."   
  
Deliberately exact same intonation, Onyx called "No deal!"   
  
Gnarl growled, and stepped forward. "Your head so dumb you not miss it!"   
  
"Yeah!" Hairtooth laughed. "We kill you, take stuff, and get gold anyway! Dumb head!"   
  
"Hooboy," Imoen sighed, her shortbow drawn, "These guys really have a thing with heads!"   
  
"I'd rather not think about that," Jaheira grimaced.   
  
The two ogres charged, shaking the bridge, and the druid unleashed an entanglement spell. Vines sprout from its very planks. The huge ogres managed to pull their huge feet out, ripping foliage as they went, but it slowed thier pace considerably. Onyx, Khalid, Minsc, and Imoen unleashed a hail of arrows, bolstered by bolts and bullets from Jaheira, Viconia, and Garrick. It was only a matter of time before each ogre collapsed, its face resembling a pincushion. The bridge shook unnervingly as the ogre bodies crashed into it, and sound of boards cracking and ropes straining echoed up and down. Jaheira dismissed her vines with a flick of her wrist, and the party carefully traipsed across the rickety, two-ogres-heavy bridge, Imoen stopping briefly to loot the bodies.   
  
"Oh wow!" Garrick beamed as Imoen showed off her wares once they were safely on hard ground. "Gauntlets of dexterity!"   
  
Viconia scoffed. "Designed to achieve the pinnacle of _human _dexterity. Bah! They would hinder me!" She went into a strange, darkly alluring dance, unhindered by her anhkeg plate to effect no human woman could have replicated, singing huskily in her native tongue.   
  
Not regretting his find in a Nashkel field the previous morn, Onyx smiled. "Nice shot back there by the way, Viccy. You got Hairtooth right in the eye."   
  
"You are wise to acknowledge my skills, barbarian," the drow stopped with hands on hips. "I have observed the same lack in others. I think our treehugging friend, despite her _elg'caress _heritage, is most in need of these."   
  
With a subtle nod to Garrick from Onyx, who agreed but didn't want to do more than necessary to sting his guardian's pride, Jaheira grudging accepted the gauntlets, slipping them on and then twirling her quarterstaff gracefully. "Nice," she smiled, her pride momentarily forgotten for the practical magnitude of the find.   
  
"Viconia," Onyx pointed to the stronghold proper, which was nestled in the rocky terrain of the island they had traversed to, "What do your drow eyes see?"   
  
"Little, in this light," she snarled impatiently. "You are a fool to mistake me for an _elg'caress _," she looked dismissively at Jaheira gain.   
  
The druid sighed, and glanced up at the stronghold, upon which the morning light poured. "Covered in gnolls," she stated. "Must be over a hundred. We really shouldn't just muscle through them."   
  
"Muscle has always worked for Minsc!"   
  
There was an echoing hamster squeak, but it sounded less eager than usual, and this seemed to make even the headstrong berserker wary.   
  
Jaheira sighed again, and continued, "The formation of the craggy rocks at the base of the stronghold, somehow suggests a cave network to me. I suggest we explore." The rest of the party nodded. They wound their way around south of the stronghold, across narrow rock ledges that hung precipitously over the swirling canyon river. Sure enough, there appeared to be cave entrances into the rocks, but also a wandering patrol of halberd-toting gnolls.   
  
"Die scum!" the growled in deep, gravely voice, and charged with their halberds raised.   
  
Onyx and Imoen had never seen gnolls before, although of course they'd seen pictures in books back in Candlekeep. They were huge, ugly beasts, much taller than a man, taller even than Minsc, with the stoop and faces of enormous dogs standing on their hind legs.   
  
"Gnolls!!!" Minsc cried, holding aloft an enchanted two-handed sword donating by a half-ogre bandit outside Nashkel, "GNOLLS STOLE OUR WITCH! THESE DOG-MEN HAVE THE STENCH OF EEEEEVIL!! GO FOR THE EYES, BOO, GO FOR THE EYES!!!"   
  
The ranger went into the berserk fury with which he'd defended the dryad, felling two with one roundhouse cleave. Onyx and Khalid were, more rationally, using bows to pick off the gnolls at range, but Minsc even in his furious might would be overwhelmed alone in melee, so they drew their longswords and charged. Varscona cleft clean through the wooden halberd halves, as did Minsc's blade which he swung with great strength and rage, and Khalid's attacks were more modest, but he feigned or blocked halberd blows while returning fruitful stabs. Viconia managed to peg a gnoll right in the eye again, and Jaheira's bullets flew with noticably improved accuracy at the monsters, and with sharp missiles unloaded by Imoen and Garrick, the gnoll patrol was soon dogmeat. Looting a few coins and gems off the gnolls, the party continued past them, into the caves.   
  
----------------   
  
"Someone's been here recently," Jade shouted as her party dashed across the bridge, upon which two fresh ogre bodies lay, their faces full of arrows. "Could it be...."   
  
"Of course it is!" Edwin snapped from behind her. Despite his long robes and the stereotpyes of his profession, he was a decent runner, breathing healthily, and soon at her side. "The witch's mad berserker must have come here, perhaps with friends. (And I regret inferring that I have little doubt over who they might be, my scarlet-haired simian). We must hurry!"   
  
Kagain wasn't a fast runner, but he was steady; Branwen so too. Xzar seemed capable of extremely quick bursts, accompanied by spastic arm flailings and wild ravings. Montaron was going as fast as a halfling can, and Xan, though anything but athletic, did stride with the stereotypical swift, lightfooted nature of his people.   
  
"Alas, there are so many gnolls up there!" the enchanter whimpered, looking up at the fortress with his elf-eyes, "A direct assault will surely be suicide, but at least end the misery more swiftly than an approach of inevitably-inadequate circumspection."   
  
Kagain pointed a stubby finger to the left, to the craggy rocks at the base of the stronghold. "I'd bet my beard there'll be caves that'll lead up through the rock."   
  
"A possibility," Jade nodded midstride, "But even if they lead up into the fortress, we'd still be surrounded by gnolls."   
  
"Don't go below, go above!" Xzar pointed in the opposite direction, to the right. A path led steeply uphill. The gnoll stronghold, rather than a freestanding fortress, wast actually built against a small mountain. Indeed it looked almost as if its foundations had been carved right out of its south face; and the bricks matched the rock. This path seemed to wind upward, leading to ledges and even tufts of grass on the mountain that overlooked the top levels of the stronghold.   
  
"Ooo," the necromancer broke into sing-song, "On top of ole' Smooookey, all covered with gnolls, we shoot down spells and arrows, pierce them full of holes!"   
  
"He may be crazy," Montaron hissed, "But he's got an idea, there."   
  
"Let's go," Jade said.   
  
The party climbed up the steep path. One four-strong gnoll patrol bore down on them at length, but even shooting uphill, the party felled thembefore they got reached halberd range. They continued climbing, and at last, as they passed the top towers of the stronghold in elevation, the natural mountain flattered out, and there was even grass growing along a modest plateau overlooking it. "Be quiet," Jade whispered to her companions as they crept along the ridge, gnolls noisly doing gnoll-business below. "No one fire or cast until I do." Jade signaled to the others to take various sniping positions. She at last took one of her own, and lay on her stomach on the grass, her longbow in one hand and an arrow in the other, looking down into the stronghold. There were indeed at least a hundred gnolls, some with different colorings on their armor probably denoting ranks, which were also evident in the way they barked at each other. _They really are like big dogs _, Jade thought, _An obvious pack structure. Perhaps I can use it against them...where's the proverbial leader of the pack? _They were moving about, some guarding, leaving or returning to the fortress on patrols. Others were carrying, cooking, flaying, or eating human and demihuman carcasses.   
  
-----------------   
  
"Carrion crawlers!"   
  
The massive centipede-like beasts crawled towards the other party the moment they entered the cave. The dank, damp tunnel reeked of refuse, and the beasts themselves were worse. They were _coated _with it. Quarters were too close for bows, and Onyx, Khalid, and Minsc could barely stand abreast in the narrow cavern, hacking away at the disgusting creatres, chopping off legs, antenna, and insectlike eating apparati. The creatures smelled worse when they were hacked open, their blood like sewage, a foul greenish-brown slime.   
  
"Cover your nose, Boo!" Minsc screamed as his greatsword chopped a carrion crawler clean in half. "The Stench of Garbage accompanies the Stench of Evil, but we will clean your fur of both once our witch is safe and sound!" The squeak had a distinct 'pee-uuu' whistle to it.   
  
No sooner had the warriors dispatched the carrion crawlers, and the party stepped over their bodies, avoiding as much of the disgusting gore and other offal in the cave as possible, than a familiar "Eeeeeeee!!!!" echoed from ahead.   
  
"Xvarts," Jaheira groaned. The tiny blue monsters charged the party, but Onyx, Minsc, and Khalid all shoulder-to-shoudler swung low and across like machete-wielding gardeners, their swords chopping xvarts in half or sending them flying into the walls with little SPLATS, their own tiny, rusty shortswords barely able to knick the men's boots. Behind them, Jaheira, Viconia, and Imoen shot the occasional well-aimed bullet or arrow between two warriors into a hapless xvart. One skittered right between Minsc's legs with room to spare, but Imoen got it point-blank. Another went under Onyx with a flyby stab upward, but Viconia hammered its face in before it turned him into a paladin of unsurpassable celibacy. Another copy-cat tried with Khalid, but knocked its forehead on the half-elf's codpiece and passed out before it could insure he and Jaheira remained a childless couple. Garrick, unable to aim his crossbow with two rows of companions in front, strummed his harp and sang a dizzyingly energetic and dischordant tune that had the xvarts whimpering, covering their ears, spinning around like little blue tops, or crashing into walls. One even crossed its eyes, drooled, and started poking at an ally's posterior with its little blade.   
  
"Play on, Bard!" Minsc laughed while mowing down xvarts, "'Tis sweet music to my furry friend!"   
  
The tunnel opened into a wide chamber, about which refuse and old boxes were strewn. Imoen, Viconia, and Garrick rummaged about, producing a few scrolls and even a strange, enormous red-and-brown tome.   
  
The bard opened the front cover and peered at it. "Hmmm....'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. Pretty heavy reading, too heavy for me!" He grunted as hefted the tome into Minsc's backpack.   
  
Mercifully, the cave grew drier but only marginally cleaner as they proceeded further back and it wound its way upward. Viconia inhaled, and spat with disgust. "I smell gnoll ahead."   
  
Onyx smiled. "Then it does lead up into the stronghold."   
  
Khalid avoided a large pile of gnoll-droppings and muttered, "This m-m-must be their sewer!"   
  
"Ewwww," Imoen wrinkled her nose adorably, "Did we _have _to come this way? I love sneaking, but not through sewage."   
  
"Get used to it, _rivvel _child," Viconia snorted.   
  
"It's all natural," Jaheira looked down at the refuse, and repeated the mantra, "Remember, Jaheira, it's all natur- ooooh, by Silvanus, what's that _horrible _smell?"   
  
The tunnel grew steeper and steeper, and at last the 'natural' cavern opened into a rectangular room of dull yellow-brown brick, matching those of the exterior of the stronghold. They filtered through the room and into a dark underground hallway. It was musty but mercifully deserted, and Viconia's elven ears perked up as she heard the heavy footsteps and canine growls of gnolls above them.   
  
"Dynaheir! Dynaheir!" Minsc cried through the eerily quiet gloom. "Where are yoooouuuu......Boo says he misses youuuu...."   
  
"Silence, imbecil!" Viconia hissed.   
  
Onyx kindly patted Minsc on the back. "We'll search down here. And if that doesn't turn up anything....we spring up onto the decks, a hundred gnolls or no. She must be found."   
  
------------------------   
  
Jade had found _him _. The leader. He was the largest gnoll of all, and barked orders at the rest in a voice that must have echoed into the Cloudpeaks themselves. He carried a truly finely crafted halberd, and his armor was ornate. _Such nice armor, made to fit a gnoll..? _The young woman wondered. _Could they really make it themselves. Or do these gnolls serve another....? _  
  
Edwin stared down intently, looking in vain for the Wychalarn, or for the magically-equipped gnoll chieftain who had made off with her two nights ago. This leader was some other. "These fleabags have ruined everything!" he hissed. "My career could be irrevocably hobbled! Could I even return to the Motherland...?"   
  
Jade had also noticed that the top deck of the stronghold had several circular pits in it, which the gnolls peered down into, licking their snouts and slobbering. She could see severed, gnawed boy parts strewn around them. _Food. People. That witch is in one of those. Pity I don't have a line of sight down into one, or I could probably pick her off and satisfy Edwin without ever having to set foot on the stronghold or bother with the gnolls. _  
  
She looked to her left. Kagain, who barely had to squat to hide from the gnolls below, had a throwing axe in hand and several more laid out. Montaron, who simply stood up near him, had his crossbow rested on a rock like some pint-size sharpshooter. Further to the left, Edwin sat cross-legged as he seethed, his manicured fingers splayed and ready to cast. To Jade's immediate right, Branwen was also prostrate, her hands folded almost in prayer, and further off was Xzar, whose fingers twitched wildly, and Xan, who gloomily peered down at the endless mass of monsters, and muttered forecasts of their inevitable dismemberment with gory details that would rival Xzar's most macabre ramblings.   
  
The sun was with them - it was at their backs, not in their eyes, and discouraging gnolls from looking up in their direction as it shined over the mountaintop. Jade got to her knees, and pulled her arrow taut, staring down the shaft at the gnoll leader. Luckily, he wore no helm and was the tallest gnoll, so even though others swarmed about him, she could make out his head. _If he'd just quit moving! _  
  
Then at last, as he stopped moving for a moment to lift a leg of roast (human) to his fangs and gnaw upon the meat hungrily, his jaw crunching but his head largely still, she had her chance. Her right thumb and forefinger lifted from the butt of the shaft, and the arrow slid gracefully forward with the bowstring, sliding over her thumb and alongside the yew-wood, and left her bow. It sailed true through the air, and just as the gnoll leader had his maw open wide for a chomp, the arrowhead flew into his throat, piercing the roof of his mouth, cutting through the base of his brain, and appeared out the back of his furry head. He dropped, dead, bowling over two gnolls near him. The others growled, looking this way and that with their halberds rasied, and none seemed to figure the direction of the sniper until a hailstorm was upon them. Edwin fired a greenish orb down which exploded into a sickly sticking cloud, Xzar on Jade's other flank cast a small whitish-grey ball which hit the deck of the stronghold and burst into a large ring of sticky spiderwebs. Xan's yellowish-white orb landed among the gnolls with a silent tingle, and the five nearest gnolls immediately shut their eyes and dropped, dog-napping with their tongues lollygagging before they'd hit the ground. Branwen's spell caused another bunch to freeze in place. All those immoblized made easy potshots for Jade and Montaron.   
  
The amassed gnolls were swarming with panicked chaos, now aware of the direction of their assailants, but unable to do much about it. A few did grab loose stones or bricks and fling them upwards at the plateau, and some of them smashed close enough to drive Xan into a new panic, but none met any marks. The chain of command broken, the swarmed aimlessly and without formation, some simply trying to escape, others to hurl more projectiles, even their halberds, or try in vain to scale the rock face the stronghold nestled against.   
  
Another wave of spells rendered more gnolls helpless, and they were cut to pieces by the continued hail of missiles. More and more began simply fleeing down the stairs leading to lower levels of the fortress and out the front gates. Some ran towards the doors in the fortress's upper walls, to escape the new outdoor forecast of magic and missiles. It was then that Jade noticed a gnoll, disappearing into a door one moment, flew back out of it with a massive slash across its face, and landed face-up and dead, as if showing this off to her.   
  
_Are they attacking each other? _she wondered in between arrow shots, _But that...looks more like the slash of a sword than a halberd. And the wound even looks slightly...frosted. _  
  
More gnolls poured into the doors leading within the stronghold, but many also scampered out again, yipping like scared puppies, and headed for the stairways leading down the front of the stronghold, though most never made it before arrows and bolts bit their back.   
  
At last, the upper decks were clear of live gnolls. The body was littered with bodies, and living ones were yipping as they careened down the staircases to the base of the stronghold, disappeared down the rocky trails at its base.   
  
"That's that!" Jade called, and her companions stood tall on the plateau.   
  
"I can't see the witch anywhere from up here!" Edwin snarled, dusting off his red robes. "Let us hope that was her thigh the chieftain was gnawing upon. (On the other hand, if he's deprived me the joy of slaying her myself, I shall be rather put out). Quick!" he called to his companions. "We must go back down the trail, and march up the stronghold itself!"   
  
"I give the orders, Thayvian," Jade yelled, but signaled to her companions to follow.   
  
----------------   
  
The search within the stronghold had proved fruitless, and the quiet had been disrupted when gnolls suddenly began pouring through the doors leading to the roof of the stronghold, yipping with inexplicable terror. Onyx and his companions had found themselves embroiled in random cramped quarter melee, but these gnolls were terrified, many already woundeds, as if engaging the adventurers was preferable to some other fate upon them on the outdoor decks. In their injured & bewilded state they were no match for the party, especially Minsc who chopped with down left and right with a witch-yearning rage, fearless and upstoppable like some living legend - which, if the verses Garrick spun on the fly caught on, he might be in days to come.   
  
They pressed down a hallway with Onyx and Minsc in the lead, Khalid a step behind and between, and Jaheira and Viconia behind the triagle of swordsmen healing their occasional halberd-wounds. At last they pushed to the end of the hallway, and blinding sunlight filtered through the doorway before them. Onyx struck one gnoll so hard with Varscona that he flew out the doorway with a frosted wound. As Khalid's half-elven eyes adjusted, he could make out a number of other mangled gnoll bodies littering the deck. Once they burst through the doorway and found themselves under the bright blue sky again, they all saw that the deck was now deserted of live gnolls. It looked as if they had just torn each other to shreds. Or been torn up by some other force.   
  
"Jade is here," Onyx stated flatly.   
  
Jaheira, ever skeptical, peered at her charge. "How do you know?"   
  
The paladin touching the tip of Varscona to the feathers of the arrow sticking out of the fallen gnoll chief's mouth, recognizing those crafted and sold at Winthrop's store. He then pointed to those in his own quiver.   
  
"In the circular pit ahead," Viconia called, her elven ears perked, "I can hear a woman's voice echoing out."   
  
"Dyyynaheeeirr!!!" Minsc cried, bounding forward in the direction the drow pointed. "Minsc and Booooo are coommiiing for yooou!!!!"   
  
Onyx dashed forward alongside the ranger, across the deck. But as they neared the circular pit, noises could be heard from further ahead, in the direction of a stairway leading up from a lower deck. Just before they reached the pit, Onyx looked up, as Jade ascended the stairway and strode purposefully toward him. Neither brother nor sister bore any surprise in their visage. And this, too, each noticed of the other.   
  
They reached the edge of the pit at the same moment. After almost no appraisal of each other, as if they'd never parted company, they both looked down into the hole A red-cloaked figure ascended the stairway behind Jade, and glided to the edge of the pit just as Minsc reached it too. The wizard and the ranger glared at one another for a moment, then all four looked down.   
  
In the bottom of the pit, surrounded by human body parts and even a fresh gnoll corpse, she stood regally, a chocolate-skinned woman in tattered indigo robes.


	33. Witch Way

**33. Witch Way**  
  
"The witch at last!" Edwin spat down at the indigo-robed woman in the pit.   
  
"Dynaheir!" Minsc cried down at his witch.   
  
"Hello, Jade," Onyx looked across the edge of the pit at his scarlet-haired sister.   
  
"Hello, Onyx," Jade looked across the edge of the pit at her brunette brother.   
  
Edwin turned to face Jade, while pointing down at Dynaheir. "Why do you stay the killing blow? Slay her! We had a deal!"   
  
The dark-skinned woman looked up at the Thayvian. "Thou hast followed me all the way from thy homeland? Thou art in need of a hobby!"   
  
"Do it yourself, Eddie!" Montaron grinned evilly as he scuttled up beside him, "It always be more fun! How about arts and crafts? Making an ashtray from her skull."   
  
"Nooo!!!" Minsc growled, staring at the Red Wizard and the halfling. "Dynaheir!! We will resuce you now!"   
  
"Precisely," Onyx nodded, glaring sternly at his sister and her wizard. "M'lady?" he looked down at Dynaheir, "I assume you'd prefer to come with us?"   
  
"Thy decency is refreshing," she smiled up at him coolly, with the poise of self-possessed royalty, not a malnourished prisoner who was nearly food themselves, "...when so many we meet are...lacking." She glared back at the Thayvian.   
  
"I will end this!" Edwin cried, and raised his arms to cast, looking down into the pit.   
  
Onyx had notched an arrow and stared down it at the conjurer. "I will not allow this murder, Red Wizard of Thay."   
  
"You'll make the murder yours, big boy," Montaron licked his lips and leveled his crossbow at Onyx.   
  
"Little man is Big Evil!" Minsc cried, aiming his own longbow at the halfling.   
  
"Big man will become dead man," Jade hissed, drawing her bow at the ranger.   
  
"I was sworn to protect both of you," Jaheira came up beside Onyx, and held her hand out menacingly to Jade, glowing a faint ethereal green, "But by Silvanus, I won't allow this!"   
  
"Go hug a tree," Kagain growled from beside Montaron, holding a throwing axe ready to hurl at the druid.   
  
"D-d-don't you d-d-d-dare threaten my wife!!" Khalid grimaced, pointing his drawn bow across the pit at the dwarf.   
  
"Oooo, can't we all just get along, harpster? I guess not," Xzar cooed silkily, appearing beside Jade and pointing his lightning-bolt wand at the half-elf.   
  
"No, cuz you're a weirdo and a meanie, Xzar!" Imoen stuck out her tongue and her magic missile wand at the wizard. "Once a bully always a bully!" she sniffled into a sneer.   
  
"I will show you the way of the warrior, mewling girl," Branwen held out sturdy arms, a hold spell on the top of her tongue.   
  
" _Lil Arurl _, heretic," Viconia smiled at the Tempusian and held out her slender fingers for her own cast.   
  
"Your course is as hopeless as mine, dark elf," Xan kept his hands low.   
  
"Once more into the breach, dear friends..." Garrick sang half-heartedly, staring over his crossbow at Xan.   
  
Beads of sweat appeared on the temples of all fourteen adventurers as they looked down their hands or weapons at their targets, and saw the same pointed at them. Only Dynaheir remained calm.   
  
"We got here first," Onyx called to Jade after the tense silence.   
  
"Did not," she called back.   
  
"Did too."   
  
"Did not."   
  
"Did too!"   
  
"Did not!"   
  
"Did too!"   
  
"Did not!"   
  
"Some things never change, brother."   
  
"You're right. I love you, sister." He pulled his gaze from Edwin to her, and didn't let go of her eyes, his starting to water.   
  
Jade's fingers slackened on her bow, her gaze magnetically locked on her brother, a thick lip quivering. "I love you too."   
  
They and the rest stood in silence for a moment. Onyx inhaled, and stared more intensely at Jade. "Look sis, this just isn't right. Have you even asked Mister Red what this is about?"   
  
"I don't need or want to know," Jade stated, "We have our arrangement."   
  
"I can't allow that."   
  
"Then I guess we'll just have to kill each other."   
  
Xan moaned, "We're all doomed." For once, everyone around him nodded in acquiescense.   
  
Various snarls, whimpers, and shrieks bounced around the fifteen adventurers. Montaron and Garrick caressed their triggers, Onyx, Minsc, Khalid, and Jade held the tension on their bowstrings shafts, Kagain stiffened his throwing arms, Edwin, Xan, Jaheira, Branwen, and Viconia stroked the air with their fingers and their lips, Xzar and Imoen squeezed their wands, and in the middle of the array of adventurers, down in the pit, with no weapons or memorized spells, Dynaheir stood unfazed.   
  
"Stand down, Jade," Onyx called.   
  
"How else do you propose we resolve this, Onyx?" she smiled.   
  
"You deal is off," he called, "Tell the Red Wizard too bad. Or we can all maybe die."   
  
"You're bluffing," she smiled. "You'll do anything to avoid a bloodbath, noble brother. Your dogma is your weakness."   
  
Edwin peered analytically at Onyx, whose drawn arrowhead was staring him in the face while his fingers pointed down at Dynaheir. "I disagree. Paladins are that stupid."   
  
"Try me," Onyx called. "You can lose the Red Wizard - who I'm _sure _will keep whatever promises he's made and has no ulterior motives that might be contrary to your own - or things can get bloody."   
  
"You can lose the Wychalarn, or things will get bloody."   
  
"But there's a difference. You would kill the Wychalarn, I have no designs for Red Wizard. And besides - it's immoral. You may not care, but I do. So I will go further. My faith is my strength."   
  
"Don't test him," Viconia laughed out from his side. "He's a pure fanatic! He'd have us all dead sooner than let you get away with this deed!"   
  
"You're bluffing, dark elf," Jade smiled, "I know him far, far better than you."   
  
Viconia narrowed her eyes. _I, naïve little girl whose life is but a blink of my beautifl eyes, am Drow Female. I can observe more in two days, nay, two minutes than you do in two decades. You, for example, care far less for keeping this wizard among your three than for the principle of pride. Against your more authority-friendly brother whose ostensibly identical childhood was much happier than yours. _Jade, for her part, read these beautiful eyes.   
  
Onyx smiled, capitalizing on Viconia's interjection and breaking into, "Your actions are base and immoral and I will not stand for this evil in my presence! I shall fight to the last!"   
  
"You're a terrible actor, brother," Jade laughed.   
  
"But you do know I won't just let you do this. Tell me Thayvian, what is your story?"   
  
"It is not your concern, and far beyond you, barbarian!" Edwin hissed. "(Actually, it just might be _precisely _your concern. But I'm hardly revealing that here and now.)"   
  
From the pit, Dynaheir offered, "Minsc has doubtless told thee of his _dejemma _to the west, and I come on a similar rite of passage. I know not why this pathetic, perverted Thayvian hounds our steps."   
  
"Tell me Jade," Onyx looked at his sister, "How much do you know about any of your companions? Long time no see, Xzar. How're the Zhents treating you?"   
  
"What!?!?" the necromancer shrieked, holding his hands over his body as if his robes and undergarments had just been summoned away in some inconvenient miscasting. Montaron cursed, but then noticed something and smiled.   
  
Jade's eyes flicked to her two companions mistrustfully. Viconia snickered.   
  
"Hey, K-k-k-halid!" Montaron laughed evilly across the pit at the half-elf. "How are the Harpers t-t-t-treating you, old boy?" Xzar giggled hysterically and Montaron feigned nervous twitches.   
  
Khalid whimpereed, and Jahiera snarled.   
  
Onyx's eyes flicked to his guardians, flaring with indignation. Edwin snickered.   
  
"If we stand here all day," Onyx yelled, "The gnolls will come back. Then we'll have a bloodbath with two losers"   
  
"All bloodbaths have two losers…" Imoen whispered under her breath, and her gaze at her twin childhood best friends grew more distant.   
  
"How do you propose we resolve this stalemate, brother?" Jade called with a smirk.   
  
"You and I. A joust of some sort. No one suffers."   
  
"You can't trust him!" Edwin snapped to Jade. "He's a paladin! Like the sniveling self-righteous hypocrite is he, he'd fight to the last in the name of so-called Good! (And besides, the point is that someone is _supposed _to suffer. Namely, the Wychalarn. And at this point, I could also find great entertainment involving her lobotomized berseker, this barely-pubescent knight, and Father's racks.)"   
  
"You can't trust her," Jaheira whispered to Onyx. "Your sister she may be, but she turned from the path your father wanted. She keeps Zhentarim and Red Wizard company now."   
  
Onyx and Jade turned their sapphire and emerald eyes to each other. "We can."   
  
"The terms," Onyx began, "You win, you keep your Red Wizard, and he may have the Wychalarn. I win, I keep the Wychalarn, and she gets the Red Wizard."   
  
"Nonsense!" Edwin snapped. "The Wychalarn has no claim over me!"   
  
"You have no claim over the Wychalarn."   
  
"She has prisoner status! There is no such symmetry! (Not that I'd expect your primitive brain to understand such a concept!)"   
  
"We just freed her. That status is terminated. You'll get no arbitrage from me. You must gamble for the Wychalarn's life with your own. You and Dynaheir are dueling for your lives, except that Jade and I will do it for you. And Jade will be indifferent as to your fate if she loses. You see, if she loses, then she doesn't retain your services, so she cares not what happens to you. As you can see, Red Wizard, your own nature comes back to haunt you."   
  
Jade smiled at Edwin, happily 'conceding' her brother the point. "He's right. Why should I care?"   
  
Edwin was in a quandary. If he promised his services under either outcome of the duel, under the condition that he not be given to the paladin or the Wychalarn, then Jade would have no incentive _not _to lose a duel, except perhaps pride and pure sibling rivalry. Either way, she had his services. In fact, as she and her brother sought the same larger objectives, she would have an _interest _in letting him gain another ally. Rationally, assuming pride didn't outweight that, she would thus throw the duel. He could demand to magically duel the Wychalarn himself, and was certain he was the superior wizard, but he feared exposing himself to a probability of failure and annihilation.   
  
"Very well, simian!" he snapped at Jade. "The Wychalarn shall be only banished from the west should her new would-be champion lose!"   
  
Jade smiled. "If I win, the Wychalarn goes home. If you win, brother, the Red Wizard goes home. Across the river that runs down to this stronghold, there is a large log where we camped. Upon this log we will duel, with quarterstaves. Whoever stays dry, wins."   
  
"I accept," Onyx stated, and he and his sister exchanged a glance. Unstringing and lowering their bows in their left hands, the twins strode around the edge of the pit, and shook with their right. A collective heaving sigh of relief rebounded around the parties as weapons, wands, and hands dropped.   
  
Minsc nodded. He, of course, would follow his witch anywhere. It was strange but probably good, his companions had noticed, that the boisterous berserker had remained so quiet during this exchange where his witch's life was haggled over like a Calimshani rug. But, wild and simple though he was, he understood that this parlay was better than an immediate battle between the two comparable-looking parties. He would defend his witch to the death beyond any deal that was made, though, he was a very noble warrior but not the sort to put an oath before her life, or his own – and in truth, the Othlor who had paired him with her apprentince, months ago and a thousand leagues east, had seen this in him. The Red Wizards were known for their wry tongues, and such an encounter as the one today, had not been altogether unanticipated by the witches, even though they could not have known for sure what, if anything, the Zulkirs knew. Even in their ostensibly external schemes, the Othlori and the Zulkirs tended to keep each other in suspicion. Such was the cloak-and-dagger politics of the Unapproachable East.   
  
But Minsc, now, was happy with the deal. His witch would not be harmed. And this witch, very much attentive as to this parlay from the pit below, was content too, even though her wellbeing was not the end of her goals. For, though she had not even really 'met' the brother and sister above, she had observed enough, to understand what they were really thinking, and smiled.   
  
Edwin was more than content. If his girl lost, he still had his ways. Whether the witch stood in her brother's company or began a trek home, he would get to her, steal her, torture her, and learn what he needed.   
  
The stronghold was no place for a duel, festering and reeking with dead bodies in the hot midday sun, and surely to be revisted by gnolls who had survived the first attack, or were ignorantly returning from patrols and hunting. The two parties marched down the stairways and through the front gate of the stronghold, a rickety affair adorned with decomposed human bodies, and down the rock path to the bridge leading off the island. Onyx and Jade marched in front, side by side, oddly enough clasping hands. Edwin strode beside Jade, and Minsc beside Onyx, with a starved and weak Dynaheir in his arms. The Wychalarn did have the energy to exchange an unending string of vile curses with the Thayvian, and Onyx and Jade grimaced. Behind them, their two parties walked abreast, probably not a wise thing. Khalid and Jaheira beside Montaron and Xzar were exchanging every imaginable slanderous epithet upon Zhentarim and Harpers. Next in line, Kagain seemed to hate drow even worse than moon elves, and Viconia was apparently none too fond of the stouter subterranean folk. Behind the earthy pair, Branwen was declaring Imoen a simpering, weak child and an insult to women, and Imoen was likening the Tempusian to an ugly, mean, and bloated stick-in-the-mud. In the rear, the ever-morose Xan and the ever-chipper Garrick were exchanging antipolar bleak or rosy opinions on every subject imaginable, from the events of the day to others thousands of years ago, each deciding the other was an over-optimistic, romantic buffoon or a over-pessimistic, cynical wretch.   
  
"Certainly I shall die of exhaustion before I fall on the battlefield!" the enchanter moaned feebly.   
  
"Shut your trap, moon elf!" Kagain and Viconia yelled together from ahead, and promptly returned to their drow-dwarf bickering.   
  
As it had grown dark, the duel would certainly have to wait until morning, but they parties trudged on through the night, up the river that separated the environs of the gnoll stronghold from the rest of the continent, to where Jade's party had camped the previous night. There now two parties camped, each uneasily, and a fair distance apart. Each mistrusted the other, and set a watch as vigilant as ever. It was a cruel irony, for a fifteen-strong band of adventurers would be a foolhardy target for bandits or wild monsters, yet to each of these fifteen, the presence of the other party only heightened the sense of danger.   
  
Around one party's campfire, in a circle sat Onyx, Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Viconia, Minsc, and Dynaheir, who rested wearily against the ranger's shoulder. She had lost only what she personally carried during the moment of the kidnapping; and Minsc of course had kept all else since upon his strong back, as he always did.. She clutched her spellbook now, thankfully, and wore also a spare set of robes, for those she had spent her captivity in were filthy, bloody, and torn to an immodest extent. They were now disposed, and she hoped the horrific memories would go with them.   
  
Garrick stood outside the circle, standing by the riverbank and playing upon his harp a soft, mellow tune. He had been practicing it the past few evenings, to the irritation of some of his companions, and though Viconia and Jaheira might still be reluctant to admit it, he had now polished the low, slow, and subtle dirge, and provided a nice background harmony amidst the crackle of the campfire, the babbling of the river. It was the sort of refrain that one doesn't consciously notice, but it soothed by, particularly after a long day of fighting numerous gnolls, carrior crawlers, xvarts, engaging in a tense standoff with another party, and then marching down mountainous trails for hours on end and well into the night.   
  
Onyx quietly appraised his new companion Dynaheir. "I thank thee, Sir Onyx of Candlekeep. I am Dynaheir of Rasheman," she at last introduced herself to him formally, holding out a chocolate-colored hand and bending it palm downwards, as if expecting him to kiss it. He politely obliged, to the restrained snickering of Jaheira and an unrestrained scoff of Viconia. Dynaheir continued, "'Tis not a title," she continued, in a voice that was soft but regal, unaggressive but self-assured, "'Tis just where I am from. We two are indeed far afield of our home," she nudged against Minsc, "but 'tis a necessary rite of passage. Minsc must make his _dejemma _by seeking adventure, while I must prove my worth to my...sisters in much the same manner."   
  
"Sisters?" Onyx asked. "The Wychalarn of Rasheman?"   
  
"You are learned. Yes, one of their younger initiates," she smiled at the paladin, as a teacher to a student, and he idly wondered her age, for she acted well beyond the years on her face.   
  
Her exuberant companion bellowed, "And Minsc will take his witch back to her sisters and then he will proudly break open the doors of the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge and fight evil with his berseker brothers! Right Boo?" A valiant squeak issued from the ranger's shoulder.   
  
Onyx smiled, and looked at Dynaheir again. "Is it usual for a dejemma to take one so far from Rasheman?"   
  
She answered, unhesitantly but cryptically, "'Tis an interesting time for the Realms, with great things foretold for the Sword Coast. 'Tis therefore a likely place to look for what we need."   
  
"And what would that be?" Onyx asked bluntly.   
  
She hesistated, and continued, "My sisters thought events of import might stir in these western landes, and thus here lies my quest, my rite of passage, and we hope that some good may come of it."   
  
"You came to the right place," he grinned at once, and Dynaheir was almost too taken aback by his easy lack of suspicion to politely smile back. Viconia snickered, attuned to this and more, and Jaheira opted to stay quiet. Her charge continued, "A strange economic crises plagues this land, and we suspect foul play. Crime surges in both cities and on highways."   
  
"We're gonna be heroes," Imoen explained giddily, and Dynaheir smiled softly in approval.   
  
Onyx continued, "Of more personal and mysterious concern, my father was recently slain and I now am hunted too."   
  
"Art thou?" Dynaheir's eyelids lifted, and studied the young man. "Yes, mysterious indeed. "   
  
Onyx and Imoen went on to retell their tenday – and their childhoods - in more detail than he had yet; also for the benefit of Viconia (who made her opinion known at every turn), Garrick (who had joined the circle and took notes by firelight, feeling this all made a nice story premise, but had a vague sense of déjà vu), and Minsc (who was delighted by the accounts of victorious duels against assassins, bandits, monsters and a serial-killing Cyricist). Dynaheir listened, on several occasions asking in a physically tired, but alert and patient voice, for expounding on details such as the stories behind their ill-remembered adoptions, or the bearing and demeanor of Gorion's murderer.   
  
"I give you compassion for your young lives' harder turns," she spoke when they finished, "But blessed art you for your wholesome childhoods, which you hast made well of." Onyx smiled thankfully, and Imoen slightly wrinkled her nose at sensing a condescending air. "Your thrusting into the world is not as I wouldst wish, but already your endeavors are valorous, and mayhaps we can all find what we need together. I have no doubt you shalt make...interesting traveling companions." Minsc nodded enthusiastically, and Onyx and Imoen did too. Jaheira and Khalid looked at one another, then nodded to the Rashemani pair in approval. Garrick scribbled furiously, and Viconia's mind raced with dire subconscious efficiency, appraising the human witch's motives and feeling out the shift in group dynamic - and wondering whether it was last, and whether she wished it to.


	34. Dual Duel

**34. Dual Duel **  
  
Noon.   
  
The river was cold and fast, carrying down the spring's last melting snows from the lofty Cloudpeaks. It was somewhat slower in the spot they had chosen, a wide pool beneath the base of a low waterfall, but the muddy 'banks' were vertical walls of packed mud and naked tree roots, which the river had dug over the ages, several men high from the water to the grass and flowers. It was this root-revealing mud that had eroded out from underneath one ancient tree, and it now lay fallen, stretching across the pool from bank to bank, a natural log bridge some forty feet long and six wide, though as a curved cylinder. Two could not walk abreast.   
  
Two stood, though, facing one another, he from the west bank, she from the east. Neither wore armor, only cloth. Onyx wore his flexible browncloth leggings, and no tunic on a hot day for his sister to grab and yank. Jade, for her part, wore the same conforming grayish-black tunic and shorts she had when they last dueled, in Candlekeep, seven days past that seemed so long ago. The thirteen fellow adventurers assembled on both banks, studying their physiques, could not have taken them for other than brother and sister.   
  
Where the great tree lay on each bank, Viconia and Branwen were opposite, poised to heal their respective allies, if it came to that – though it wasn't supposed to. The others were scattered about, but unfailingly aligned with their existent parties. Jaheira stood between her husband and Viconia, watching, vigilant for any infraction or foul play from the girl who was meant to be her charge, but had not arrived at the Friendly Arm Inn six days ago. Imoen, the girl who had, sat cross-legged in clover, distracted at the moment by an intent search for one with four petals. Right next to her perched Garrick, a feather quill waving in a white cone as he scribbled, inking in rhyme his fall-in with this entourage five days ago.   
  
Xan sat on the other bank, his robes folded primly over bony knees. "Observe how the twins expend their strength and skill merely to cancel one another out. So much waste, such symmetric futility. Why, oh, why even bother and toil, only to sum to nill again? Life is so hollow."   
  
While Kagain simply muttered a curse in between pipe-puffs, Montaron paused in his smoking to grimace murderously for the hundredth time at the hopeless elf that had joined their outfit but four days ago. "If ye don't shut up, prissy-boy, it'll be yer skull that prove hollow."   
  
"Now Monty," his tattooed associate crooned, "You _will _save the brains? It's my turn to cook tonight, after all."   
  
On the bank to Onyx's sweating back, Minsc teetered on the edge like another great tree ready to fall, and held his companion Boo out for a closer view at the action, hoping his three days' trek with these noble companions would now fulfill its purpose, reuniting him with his witch to continue their dejemma, while the bad man went home with his red skirt tucked between his legs.   
  
Edwin, sneering at the addled tracker from his side, twiddled his thumbs nervously as he appraised the warrioress he had 'hired' but two days ago. He turned his glare to Dynaheir, found again only yesterday, who stood by her bodyguard, her chocolate-silk features smug, calm, and confident.   
  
The twins each held an oaken quarterstaff. The much-traveled weapons and walking staves of, appropriately enough, those whose fates they would now duel for. Their eyes were locked, and had been for some minutes. They must have sparred each other a hundred times, but none like this.   
  
_"Lil Alurl, sartglin. Lil dumoas del Shar piwafwi dos," _Viconia whispered into Onyx's ear. The paladin bristled; he hadn't even heard her bare ebony feet step right up behind him.   
  
"What?" Branwen demanded from the other end of the bridge. "What is this?"   
  
Viconia sneered at her opposite number, and through lowered eyelids explained mockingly, "For your erudition, barbarian: 'The best, warrior. May the blessings of Shar cloak you.' "   
  
"I care not for your foul speech!" Branwen hollered back. "It is not that you bless him, but that you _Bless _him! 'Tis a transgression in this duel, and Tempus smites none with more fury than those who dishonor oaths of combat!"   
  
"Busted!" Xzar giggled. His companions rose to their full height, and bellowed salty dwarven and halfling curses of cheating and outrage.   
  
Onyx searched himself warily for Shar's dark touch. "I cannot tell," he stated lamely, and turned to Jaheira.   
  
"The drow cast, yes," answered the druid who had been standing near Viconia, who now turned to shoot the half-elf an indignified glance.   
  
"Thank you for your expedient alert, Jaheira," Jade called with a snarl to the woman who had studied her accusingly for several minutes on end. "Your vigilance against cheating is commendable."   
  
"Silence, wayward child!" Jaheira screamed, face flushing, Khalid trying in vain to calm her with a hand.   
  
"Now, now," Xzar called from across the pool, hands cupped over a grinning mouth, "We needn't harp on this…"   
  
""Aye, X," Montaron stage-spoke, "We know that lady be honest and forthright with her friends, right Onyxy-lad?"   
  
Onyx exhaled, not looking at Jaheira or Viconia again. "It will pass."   
  
"This grows tedious," Edwin growled. "(These robes are rather thick for such a sunny day, but I must maintain my fearsome, intimidating, and stylish appearance.)"   
  
"The Lord of Battles shall level this duel one more," Branwen proclaimed, and none objected as she blessed Jade.   
  
"Enough," the imbued fightress stared down her brother. "It begins!"   
  
"Yet how did it begin?" Onyx lamented, but then his sister was upon him. She closed the distance of the log before anyone had realized she'd begun, winding her quarterstaff back to swing it across her brother's face, surely with enough force to leverage her tall brother off the log and end it then and there.   
  
"Sweet Lath-!" his knees bent not a moment too soon, and the staff whizzed over his hair, with a deep, raking hum of air being cut. Without really thinking, still surprised, he just pushed his quarterstaff forward in both hands, to push his sister back. The center of the staff smacked her waist, but she was already stepping back, and her right foot planted solidly behind her. Onyx applied more strength, knowing he could beat his sister in a pure push-o-war, and as she started to get pushed back past her own center of gravity, her staff shot down to stamp the top of his left foot. The pain was sharp and he stopped his assault to maintain his own balance. She regained initiative, and cracked the other end of her staff against his forehead, pushing his weapon back off her waist with the middle of hers.   
  
Jade pressed her advantage while Onyx's left foot went back to plant solidly behind his right, like his sister's stance a moment ago. He felt his staff firm and hers cracked against it, at that moment he pushed again, bending forward to lower his center of gravity, and straighten and anchor his back leg. She simply took two nimble strides back, out of range of his press, and lifted the lower end of her weapon to lance forward for his knee.   
  
Onyx couldn't move his leg fast enough to dodge, so he kept it there so as to keep his balance when it hit, moving his staff sideways to try to sweep away the blow. But it did hit, and hurt, sharply against the kneecap. Only then did he hit her staff with his and sweep it aside, and kept going, to put her off balance. While she retracted her staff, he slid his up along hers, and hit her left hand, numbing her pinky, and then he jerked back and right and cracked the end of his staff perfectly against her elbow, on the funny bone.   
  
Jade's left forearm erupted in a mad tingle, the fingers freezing, and her left hand left the staff. She gripped her right tighter, striding back some more with the clear disadvantage, cursing her loss of ground she had gained with her first initiative. While her brother chased her, plunging for her center of mass with one end of her weapon, she curled hers into her right armpit like a lance, tight even in one arm, and dropped to a kneel, to hit his knee. For once, her brother wasn't stronger and taller – he was stronger _but _taller, and she was going to whack him below that higher center of gravity until he went out from under himself.   
  
Onyx stopped, lunging his upper body and straightening his arms, trying to gain greater reach and hit her chest before she could hit his knee. They both made contact. He earned another sharp pain, balance faltering but not direly. She was hit much harder, a rib buckled and almost broke, and she rolled onto her back on the log, legs instinctively dropping over both sides for balance and grip. He pressed his advantage, batting his staff's lower end from her right to sweep her off the log, and she swung her staff right to crack it against his, but still slid an inch to the left with the disparity of momentums. He cracked again, but with less windup and force, and she drove the 'lower' end of her staff into his calf. It went clear out from under him, and he dropped to one knee, scraping down the curve of the log, nearly catapulting face-first into the pool below. But, pure reflex, he jerked his upper body back to counterweight.   
  
Jade had the moment she needed to rise, squeezing her legs around the log to sit-up into a straddle, bend her legs in, lift into a crouch, then stand. Her brother rose at the same time, and the rammed their shafts across each other's once in simultaneous attempts to get first initiative while the other was still getting up. Onyx pushed his sister back, but not off balance, in fact so on balance she lifted a foot briefly to kick his shin before planting again. His sister's coordination and reflexes had always been better, but probably more importantly her mind was quick enough to take advantage of these opportunities, whether it was conscious or not. He pressed still, his staff against hers, just trying to bowl her back far enough to lose her balance. Lifting a foot again would cost her that; she couldn't take a step back.   
  
She tried another gambit off her lower, nimber balance – as she was pushed back, she deliberately tilted to her left, forcing him to go to his right. He'd lose his balance right before she lost hers left, but she was still losing her balance backwards. Onyx let his right hand go from his staff, and lunged back toward the middle of the log, sweeping his right arm out to try to bat her at the same angle she'd been daring to go, and send her into the pool. But she dropped and his arm sailed over, she now nearly slipping off the side of the log before jerking her upper body back. She punched the top end of her quarterstaff upward once she dropped, into his exposed armpit like a pikewoman spearing a charging warhorse, then jerked right to push him off-balance off the other side of the log. He dropped too, reclaiming the staff in both hands and hiding his armpit again, and pushed the wood forward at her face. She crossed her weapon and pushed back, and for the first time during the battle, their eyes met.   
  
Onyx let go of his staff, one hand at a time, clamping onto Jade's. She shook hers, unable to snatch it back out of his grip, while Dynaheir's quarterstaff slid through their arms and plunged end-first into the cold water. The twins jerked at Edwin's staff, Jade using directional surprise to make up for her brother's strength, and each repeatedly lost one hand of grip only to replace it before their other could be shaken off. They both slumped down from kneels into lopsided straddles, then Jade started trying just to pull it to her left, leaning them both off the side of the log they were already precariously close to. Onyx let his left hand go, and now swept it inward to grab Jade's right arm and bat her off balance. He succeeded, but then her left arm released the staff, and snaked around her brother's neck, clamping it inside her elbow. She was falling, but he was coming with her.   
  
The twins' straddling legs scraped down the side of the log, and to their own perception they seemed to hang ludicrously for a moment, their torsos sideways, before their sweaty legs left the bark. Edwin's staff was let go and they both flailed a moment, the same memories of diving off sandy low cliffs into the Sea of Swords snapping before their eyes, then they hit the pool's surface with two spectacular splashes.   
  
They sank several feet under, in cold-shock, Jade's long scarlet hair flowing with beautifully slow fluidity. The mountain water was cold and clear, their eyes bulging and meeting. Bubbles escaping their lips, they smiled, breaking into conspiratorial smirks before embracing underwater.


	35. Split Decisions

**35. ****Split**** Decisions **  
  
Jaheira watched in shock as the twins fell together from the log.   
  
"W-well…" Khalid shrugged, "You did say neither was in t-t-tune with the Balance."   
  
On the other bank, Edwin waved his long-nailed finger triumphantly. "The witch and I are both banished! (Her return trip shall be swift, if not ending quite how she expects.)"   
  
"By the deal's wording," Kagain spoke up, "She still's with them, and yer still with us, Red. More's the pity, if'n ya ask me." He chuckled as he watched the wizard fluster, and took a long drag of his pipe.   
  
Edwin screamed, "No! We…." Then his jaw clumped shut, and then dropped.   
  
Xzar clapped his hands. "Oh, this is positively ghastly! Now we can continue working on our 'Three Wizzes' routine!" He lifted his fist. "Nyaa…nyuk nyuk!" He gave Xan a noogie, and then poked his eyes with two fingers. "No, no!" Xzar wailed as the enchanter simply whimpered and turned away. "You're supposed to block, like this!" He put an open hand up over his nose, blocking his own next attempt to poke his own eyes. "Say, my wonderfully frail elf, remember what you said about fighting being a zero sum game?"   
  
Montaron snickered, nodding along, and grinned saucily at Edwin. "They both be keepin' their foreigner wizards now…"   
  
Xzar beamed grandly at Xan. "...you were wrong!"   
  
The elf sighed. "The futility of my philosophizing only proves its point…"   
  
"Now _that _is true…" Xzar touched his chin thoughtfully. "Still, I don't know why you go on about death and destruction like it's a bad thing."   
  
Their heads, and all the rest on both banks, turned to watch Onyx and Jade approaching behind Minsc, who had run downriver to retrieve his witch's quarterstaff when it fell in. After falling in themselves, the twins had floated down the pool to where the steep erosion-walls sloped down into flat banks, to find the ranger begrudgingly saving Edwin's staff too, and now all returned up the east bank.   
  
"You….you simple, clumsy strumpet!" Edwin pointed an accusing finger at an approaching Jade. "You lost to this bumbling brother! You..."   
  
He was cut off as Jade snatched the wagging wrist with her left hand, unnecessary force making it clear she could've broken it, and her right arm lashed out to grip the conjurer about his precious amulet. While the wizard's left hand jerked with a useless reflex for his throat, her right foot hooked around his to kick it out from under him, and she dropped him onto his back on the grass, pressing her hand against his throat while it still clutched the jewelry. "...will...never…call…me….strumpet….again…" she snarled, increasing the pressure.   
  
"Urk!" was Edwin's reply. Jade lessened the pressure, and he wheezed, "I'll go! Send off the witch and her fool!"   
  
Jade smirked. "I stated: bro wins, you go home. I win, the witch goes home. Whoever stays dry, wins. Do I look dry to you?"   
  
The conjurer's wide eyes flipped down at the clinging, wet tunic. "Urk?"   
  
"And don't stare at my chest!" Jade screamed, deforming his throat with her knuckles.   
  
"Urk!" Edwin's tongue waggled, turning purple. Jade released the pressure again, and he screamed, "Cheate-", getting himself summarily silenced again.   
  
Viconia, having sauntered across the log onto the east bank, watched this with glee. "I disagree, bearded mongrel," she lorded over the prone wizard, eyes instinctively drawn to the proper spot for a ceremonial dagger. "The only crime is getting caught, and I see no evidence of any cheating…ah well!" she shrugged faux-helplessly. Branwen looked more accusingly at the twins, but said nothing.   
  
"You are my indentured servant now," Jade glared at Edwin, forcing him to meet her gaze with his bulging eyes.   
  
"Don't look so surprised, Red Wizard of Thay," Onyx said thinly, "Isn't this how you expect servants to be treated?"   
  
Jade chuckled. "One year. Don't try to scram. You've seen me with a bow. 'Twoud be a pity to get yet another hole in those lovely robes."   
  
"Good luck gettin' out the grass-stains, fancy-pants.." Kagain snickered, and shared a 'high' five with Montaron. "…fancy-dress, ye mean," the halfling added. Edwin whimpered.   
  
"Don't worry, Ed," Jade smiled mock-caringly down at her conjurer, "It'll be profitable, adventurous, and good experience."   
  
Xan frowned. "The revenge business is seldom profitable. Then again, what is?"   
  
Jade glared out of the top of her eyelids at the enchanter. "I am."   
  
Across the river, Jaheira and Khalid conversed in hushed tones. Imoen and Garrick were chattering excitedly about the outcome, gripping hands to cross the log-bridge easily enough anyhow. After them, Dynaheir lifted her skirt to cross with more patience and care, studying the interaction between her Thayvian pursuer and the rest. Minsc helped her off the end of the log, and she smiled.   
  
With Edwin subdued, and no one else openly objecting to the outcome, the two parties turned to a long, complicated discussion. The rivalry and antagonism seemed to have vanished abruptly, and despite jokes and jabs (Jade and her apparently-Zhentarim pair of friends took a delight in having beaten her brother and Immy and their Harper guardians to the Nashkel mines) all seemed seriously focused on addressing 'what next'. This was, after all, their livelihoods, and their lives. They exchanged detailed accounts of their adventures so far, and of plans for the near future. Jade's party had the only leads regarding the sabotage of the mines, or her and Onyx's hunters. Mulahey's letters pointed to a 'Tranzig' in Beregost, the verbal slips of the Amazonian assassins named the saboteurs as the Iron Throne and suggested them to be the twins' hunters as well; Nimbul's letter, from the same 'Tazok' who had signed the missives to Mulahey, confirmed this link. Kagain related all he knew about the Throne, and the Talon and Chill mercenary outfits they had been revealed to employ.   
  
The two parties were hardly on terms to travel together. Onyx had seen his sister's associates light up like fireflies at his detection of evil, as much as he wanted to stick with her in the wide world. Imoen too direly missed Jade, but was terribly uncomfortable with her creepy crew. Jaheira and Khalid had their own ethical and affiliative objections, as did Dynaheir and Minsc. Xzar and Montaron weren't exactly keen on hated Harpers or goody-goody paladins and rangers. Nor was Kagain, nor would he want his share going from one-seventh to one-fifteenth. Edwin had never met a paladin, but had been taught to hate them, and was pretty sure he hated whatever Harpers were. Of course he hated the Rashemanis, but wondered if keeping in their company would have been advantageous. He thought so, but he was hardly in a position to bring everyone together, nor could he try without making his intentions more obvious than they already were. Onyx and Minsc had threatened him bluntly against treachery (although the whole point of treachery, he thought irritably, was that such muscleheads wouldn't be aware or able to stop him anyway). He would have to wait for his opportunity.   
  
Garrick had no real objections to this other party, in fact he tended to like new faces (especially Jade's), and he thought such a large group might be fun (and safer). Though he was a touch unsettled by the way the tattooed wizard kept leering at his skull, and the greasy halfling at his coin pouch. Viconia thought such a large group would be unwieldy and hopelessly unstealthy, but her observations of the other party suggested she might find it more agreeable to her tenets. On the other hand, most of them seemed quite freakish or pathetic, and they were unfamiliar. It wasn't that she had any attachment to or fondness for any of her current companions, quite the reverse she told herself, but at least they had proved useful allies for her livelihood and defense. She understood enough about surface institutions to know that it especially meant something that Onyx, before they'd even properly met, had for her defense brought himself and his friends to violence against a fellow paladin and an agent of the law. She still didn't understand his deluded code of beliefs, nor the Harpers', but they were clearly something malleable to her own ends. And besides, she thought with a glance shifting from Jade and Xzar to Onyx and Imoen, what need was there to lavish the Nightsinger's touch upon already darkened hearts, when there were parched pastures unshadowed? In the end, familiarity won out.   
  
Along similar but opposite lines, Branwen had these thoughts too. The other party seemed possessed of many respectable warriors, but Jade had grown on her like a wayward younger sister, their oddball troupe needed guidance and a voice of sanity, and above all she wanted vengeance with Tranzig, which was the prerogative of her current party. Xan also wondered if the other group might be more tolerable, but the drow scared him more than any single current companion, he feared the prejudice and suicidal fanaticism from the paladin that his people had warned him about, and he was afraid the gigantic berserker might somehow accidentally crush him with a hug, step on him in his reverie, or hack him down in his supposed berserk rages. And he was curious about the innate power Jade had displayed, though according to Viconia, Onyx had done something similar. Given they were twins, he wasn't surprised.   
  
Jade wasn't sure she objected to any of her brother's companions, but she knew he and Imoen wouldn't be able to stand hers, as had first divided them outside Candlekeep seven long days ago. It occurred to her, though, that a number of her party's actions wouldn't have met her brother's ridiculous rules and codes. For the first time since it had happened, she was reminded of the idiotic Fist she had slain a few hours after their parting. She had omitted this detail, and found it amusing that the other group had killed a Fist of their own, defending the Sharran dark elf of all things, but the differences prevailed.   
  
This was the first moment, really, that Jade realized she and her brother, even if allies and situations changed, as things did over time, would probably never be able to adventure side by side. If they were both going to be professional adventurers, that meant Candlekeep had been the last of their days together. Glancing across the assembled circle at her brother during Kagain's speech, she read the revelation shared in his eyes. She might have omitted the Fist, Montaron's thieving spree, and other details, but he read between the lines. For a moment, they both wished nothing more than to be back in the hallowed halls with Imoen. But it wasn't going to be that way.   
  
None of this was spoken; not a single adventurer of the fifteen suggested they travel together, or insisted they couldn't. Everyone was aware enough of others' incompatibilities, regardless of their own. It didn't need to be said.   
  
With particularly vehement insistence from Branwen, Jade's party decided to beeline for Beregost and deal with this Tranzig, and rendezvous with the others there to share any further leads. The Harper couple and Zhent duo were mum about whether they might have any contacts in Beregost, but Onyx would see if mayor Ormlyr had learned anything. Garrick would work the taverns for loose tongues. When he muttered regret for Silke's loss, Xzar cheerfully offered to reanimate and query her. Kagain would consult his books and maps for any more information about Throne holdings or dealings. Barring any other leads, he suggested and the others agreed that the Iron Throne's new branch in Baldur's Gate would be the logical place to search, if a difficult and dangerous one.   
  
With no more use to planning until they met again in Beregost, the two parties took the opportunity to barter with each other. Jade's had seemed to acquire more in the way of equipment, from mines, tombs, and wilderness wackos, but Onyx's had more gold. This was thanks largely to sold ankheg husks and the generous bounty from slaying Bassilus, which Jade noted with irritation was over five times hers from the far more involved and important task of scouring the mines. Kagain explained this as Nashkel mayor Ghastkill's lesser resources, and added a few choice phrases about Keldath Ormlyr's disbursement of city taxes and church offerings.   
  
Their parties trusting in Garrick and Kagain for the gritty appraisal and haggling of enchanted arms and armor, the dwarf sold the bard Amnian huntress Sendai's longsword for Khalid and the 'fair bandit' Neville's for himself, his consort Jemby's fire-warding robes for Dynaheir, the half-ogre highway robber Arghain's two-handed sword for Minsc, and the assassin Maneira's leathers for Imoen. Last, oddly enough, Montaron during the tellings of past adventures had connected the greenstone ring he'd found in the mines with Onyx's story about the farmwife ('farmwidow, now', he corrected with an evil chuckle) and her missing husband. The halfling got the paladin to buy the ring off him at a juicy markup from market rates. Onyx was thankful his party had been planning to return to Nashkel, practically on the way to Beregost anyway, to sell off the pelts of a few unwisely-aggressive winter wolves.   
  
And that was it. The fifteen adventurers packed, the two parties discussed their exact routes among themselves, and started to move out. Onyx and Jade and Imoen lingered, sharing a prolonged triangular embrace.   
  
"I didn't want it to be this way, guys," Imoen whimpered, and Onyx nodded.   
  
"We didn't want Gorion to die either, did we?" Jade swallowed, her mouth dry. "But it happened."   
  
Onyx whispered, "This one's your call, sis. You're always welcome to join us, and wanted. Branwen too. I'm sure you'd both be happier."   
  
"I have my own party now!…" Jade's voice tried to be insistent and angry, but it failed. She sighed, and softened. "You know I can't." She didn't want to abandon Xzar. But Xzar came with Monty. Imoen couldn't stand Monty, and she pitied Xzar but he freaked her out too. The patronizing half-elf guardians wouldn't stand for either Zhent. Jade sighed, thinking all this and knowing it was how the argument would invariably go. "Look," she said, "We'll get to the bottom of this faster in two groups. And it's not like we won't meet up now and then. It's only a few days to Beregost."   
  
"All true," Onyx admitted, "We'll miss you."   
  
"Gonna miss ya…" Imoen's chime was bittersweet.   
  
Jade looked at both of them. "Miss ya double. At least you have each other. Goodbye." She turned away, and jogged to catch up with her group. Onyx and Imoen truged after theirs, looking at each other with faces superimposing relief, guilt, and love.

END PART ONE


	36. Raiders of the Lost KOZAH

**36. Raiders of the Lost KOZAH **  
  
Jade's thoughts drifted across twenty years, wrapping her like in warm blankets with her loyal twin brother and cheerful best friend. The field her feet traversed gave way to a jagged mess of exposed rocks; flat paths twisted up and down. Like a natural quarry, it recessed. The party made out a group of men in the bottom, toiling away with shovels and pickaxes.   
  
"Put yer backs into those shovels, men!" shouted an older overseer. "If she's not out tonight we'll lose 'er to the bandit scum!"   
  
Jade tilted her head forward, signaling for her party to advance. They made their way down among the rocks, and before long the silver-bearded overseer snapped up to look at them, his eyes sharp and twinkling.   
  
"You there!" he called. "State your business, but don't move from where you stand! I don't want to have to sic the boys on you."   
  
Jade sighed, looking over the frail half-dozen diggers, but kept any smart comment to herself. "Relax," she parlayed boredly, "We mean no harm. Had much trouble?"   
  
The old man softened, and nodded. "Have we? Aye, and plenty of it. Nary an eve goes by without us losing another hand to the night. I swear, if we could just get a few moments of uninterrupted digging done..." he trailed off, and his eyes sparkled, "Say! You wouldn't be willing to do a little service for me, would you? You could do a lot worse than working for ol' Charleston Nib."   
  
Jade twisted her lips. "We're not ones to dally, but...if the price was right..."   
  
Charleston nodded. "We have little to offer, but would 50 gold suffice? It's all we can give, what with having to restock our camp thrice over. Damnable saboteurs! Your mere presence may be enough to discourage our mystery assailants. Are ye up for it? It would only be for a short while."   
  
Kagain, Edwin, and Montaron all grumbled, and Branwen scoffed, wanting very much to continue their beeline for Beregost. Xan also seemed uneasy, but more at the falling night. Xzar, on the other hand, seemed fascinated. "Mystery assailants..." he whispered enthusiastically to Edwin, who by now had more or less learned to ignore the rambling necromancer, "To dig up the long-dead and be assaulted in the night is neither mystery nor mishap to Xzar! O o no no! We like the insomniac ghosts of sweet-treat nobility of the age of the chrysanthemums long past, o yes we do! We play checkers and backgammon into the wee hours...haunted is wanted, say we."   
  
Jade did her bartering scoff, and sneered at the excavator. "Such paltry coin is not worth our time! Raise your offer or we're gone."   
  
"But..." Charleston began, and then sighed. "...ah, as ye wish. Perhaps we can scrape together another 50, but we must be done tonight. 100 satisfactory?"   
  
Kagain's grumble dropped. "Too dark fer ye humans to press on," he remarked to Jade, sensing they truly weren't going to squeeze more out of this outfit. "Might as well start restin' up and get paid fer it."   
  
"An acceptable price for potentially doing nothing," Jade smiled at the man, "Continue your work, and we shall keep watch."   
  
"Gracious we are!" Charleston spanked his trousers, and clapped his dusty hands. "Now we stand a chance of completing the most exciting day of our dig! We're going to try for an entire new room today, possibly the shaman or chieftain quarters! We could find any number of relics within. Make yourselves at ease, but be vigilant."   
  
"It's what we do," Jade shrugged.   
  
The party set up a sort of camp back from the dig site; but the wizards had hardly opened their spellbooks when a greasily grinning hooded fellow sauntered into their midst.   
  
"What do you want?" Jade demanded.   
  
The man's grin only widened. "Name's Gallor, and we never had this conversation. I'm the 'partner' of that old mister Charleston you met, except I'm none too thrilled about the non-profit aspects of the whole thing. The old man seems to think we should donate all our findings to some museum, whereas I am ever so much more practical. I should think certain people would pay dearly for the magical treasure we are about to unearth, and if they would be so eager, who are we to stand in their way? I would like you to steal the item and remove Mr. Nib from my little equation. You up to the task?"   
  
Jade frowned. "Magical treasure? I was under the impression that no one knows what's to be found there? Why are you so sure?"   
  
"Old mister Nib would never admit it, but that is mainly because he doesn't wish to jinx the dig. From what I could decipher in the ancient writings, the final room contains 'the plate that provides bounty, leading food unto god'. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what that means. Obviously the item under all that dirt and rubble is enchanted such that it 'provides bounty.' Whether it's through increased crops or good hunting I care not. Regardless, an object of that age and enchantment should command a hefty price and I intent to see that it does. You can be a part of it if you wish."   
  
Branwen and Xan murmured with understated moral qualms, the others simply remained skeptical. Jade gazed critically at the man. "It is a very sketchy description that you offer."   
  
Branwen added, "I should think that different deities would require different 'bounty' to be delivered. Are you so sure this ancient one preferred 'bounty' that we would find valuable? Or even, say, nonfatal?"   
  
Gallor scoffed and shrugged, "I care not whether the primitives who lived here worshipped chickens and the plate produces fodder! It does not matter! What DOES matter is that we potentially have an item associated with a god long since lost to the mists of time. Its former enchantments may not even work, but it will still command an exorbitant price from a historian or collector. Do you wish a piece of the pie or don't ya?"   
  
Xan squealed, until thumped by Montaron, who was already picturing the gold (and the relic too, after they pried it from this rube's dead fingers). Branwen spat with disgust, but Jade gave her friend a private, knowing look, and smiled at Gallor. "A bloody task. What would be my reward for such a risk?"   
  
"Consider a payment of 900 gold," the traitorous excavator offered. "Would that be to your liking? Not a bad price for the heads of an old man and his dirty hired ditch-diggers. What say you?"   
  
Jade smiled sweetly. "I need little excuse to partake in bloodshed. Consider them dead tonight."   
  
"Excellent!" Gallor wrung his hands. "Best you hurry back now. They were just about to breach the inner sanctum, and it would be best to take care of them before a runner is dispatched with the news. I will meet you here after the deed to make our exchange. Remember to get everyone! I will be the sole survivor to tell the tale."   
  
He nodded politely, his gaze resting a little too long on Jade, then turned and returned to the excavation.   
  
"What did you intend?" Branwen asked Jade, her tone demanding.   
  
The fightress grinned. "Simple. I won't touch the hapless old man in charge. We'll just slay that slime after our little job, and get his pay anyway. If the gold's a bluff, we're still doing the world a favor."   
  
Branwen nodded grimly. "'Twoud be left a cleaner place."   
  
"Why don't we just kill 'em both!" Montaron grinned. "Get an' sell any relics too."   
  
"We must be wary of a curse, greedy murderer," Branwen admonished, "I strongly advise against thieving from mysterious, ancient Powers."   
  
"Say, Monty..." Xzar touched his chin, "Remember when we saw the Dale Wind Troubadours in Baldur's Gate? The play where the Zhents try to open the seal on the Ten Tablets and they all burst into holy light while the hero and heroine shut their eyes?"   
  
" _Tomb Raiders of the Lost Ark _," Montaron answered. "The thespian establishment always be bashin' the Zhents. They be politically biased, I tells ye."   
  
"Oh yes," Xzar nodded, "But that Eldoth Kron really does play a delightfully slimy Fzoul Chembryl. And the leading couple was nice too, with Miss Silke as Bara Chest and Sir Garrick as Neverwinter Jones. I got his autograph this morning, you know. And once back in town and I reanimate her, I'll have the matched pair!"   
  
The party's heads snapped away at a commotion from the diggers. "Success!" Charleston Nib shouted into the night, and waved them over. "We are about to enter the last remaining room! It's sure to be the shaman's abode! Now we'll get some real information about what these people were truly like!"   
  
Jade and Branwen exchanged wary glances, but stood from their circle, and led their party to the diggers, and then into the hole of a 'doorway' in the rock, into the belly of the rocky outcropping on the land.   
  
Jade's breath became short as foul air assaulted her, but the sight was fairly impressive, illuminated by her own body heat. Idly clinking Nimbul's ring against her clutched sword handle, she looked around, taking in the archeological find. It was a primitive earthen dwelling, the chamber walls lined with cave paintings, primitive weapons and pottery scattered about. She followed Charleston and his miners, and her party followed her, through a smaller but similar second chamber; and then into the third, housing a crud stone sarcophagus but smaller still; the air growing staler and fouler.   
  
One of the diggers horked and coughed at Charleston. "Hey bossman, I don't feel so good. How old is the air in this place?"   
  
The old archaeologist brightened, with academic obliviousness to the man's true concern. "A good question young man. I would guess that we are the first people to walk this room in nearly 5,000 years. The very gods of Netheril would have been young at that time!"   
  
Another digger started coughing, and hugged himself. "Is so…is so cold in here…I feel…strange…."   
  
Another's eyes rolled back in his head, as he snorted phlegm. "I hear…I hear a voice…in my head…"   
  
"O o…" Xzar bit his knuckles, but his eyes were lucid as they darted warily from miner to miner. "They are looooooosing it…." Not a one of his companions made the obvious charge of hypocrisy; they too could see their necromancer was all too astute in this.   
  
A fourth miner nodded to the third, giggling madly. "I hear the voice, but it is but a mumble! Speak up! Speak up and guide mine hands! RAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!"   
  
"You….." a fifth's eyes bulged and he stared at Edwin. "….I see what you are! There is power to be had from your death!"   
  
The sixth white-knuckle gripped his shovel, and lifted it overhead to brain Jade. "Your blood will quiet the voice! BLOOD WILL QUIET!"   
  
The six miners all groaned in immaculate unison, "BLOOD WILL QUIET!!!! KOZAH!!!"   
  
Jade threw her left hand up, calling out her innate power. The shovel slammed silently against a shield of pure force, and Jade brought the golden hilt up over her bastard sword into the man's face, smashing his nose in a bloodspray. As he reeled back into the chamber wall, she took the sword in two hands, flipped it up and lunged in, plunging it down through the man's chest.   
  
Around the chamber, her ready party dealt with the berserk commoners without breaking much of a sweat. Branwen knocked one to the floor with her shield, then summoned her spiritual hammer and crushed the prone man's skull. Kagain ripped open one's intestines with his axe while the shovel banged tinnily on his helm, and then drug him to the floor with the hook. Montaron amputated one's leg with his enchanted shortsword, and when the man fell he hacked open the throat with a wicked laugh. Xan, who had gone greenish in the face from the rancid air, out of mortal terror if nothing else made use of his magical moonblade, which sliced through the shovel like butter, and opened the miner from collar to crotch. Edwin broke one of his precious nails when the last miner banged his shovel against the quarterstaff where he held it, and swore in cracking Thayvian, but Xzar drove the Revenant's dagger right into the crazed fellow's temple, lobotomizing him with a twist of the wrist and a giggle of glee.   
  
Charleston Nib stood, frozen in pale terror, and his breathing eased once his crazed workers were all downed.   
  
"Looks like we earned out pay," Jade smirked grimly. Charleston, tongue-tied, nodded rapidly.   
  
For a moment, Branwen expected the old man to have a heart attack, and called the proper healing knowledge to the forefront of her thoughts. Charleston calmed, though, and at last spoke. "I….I think I can explain the madness that overcame my men. They seemed to scream in some ancient tongue, but I recognize the word 'Kozah'. It's the name of an ancient power; the name of a god of pandemonium…"   
  
Xzar tittered nervously. "Forebear of…..Cyyyyyyyyric….." he bit his knuckles, facial tattoos twisting like flapping bat-wings.   
  
"…The tribe that lived here must have worshiped Kozah and the destruction he brought. The artifact that lies within this stone sarcophagus must be what has caused all of this bloodshed. Surely that artifact is cursed beyond belief! Please make sure it is within its proper place and we will seal the entrance. It's best that it never sees the light of day."   
  
Jade and Branwen nodded, and despite grumblings from Kagain and Montaron, none moved to open the heady lid of the sarcophagus. "It's sad really…" Charleston drawled, his bright eyes growing moist; the eye bags reddened and more pronounced, "I had sought to bring a little life back to a long extinct people, and look what I wrought. Certainly some things are better off remaining dead." He reached to his belt, and handed Jade a pouch of the promised hundred gold. Jade, for her part, didn't even count it. "Here is your pay for your time, and…saving my life, it seems. Your services are no longer required. We are leaving this accursed place!"   
  
Jade sighed, biting her lip. "For what it's worth…I'm sorry. I had the benefit of a good education…" her mind wandered, and for a moment, she even saw a touch of Gorion in the professorly old archaeologist, "…History, Netheril…I am an adventurer, and no scholar now, but…I understand your quest."   
  
Charleston Nib smiled. "You're a good lady, Miss Jade. You don't have to be a scholar. It's a desire to know, and explore, that is the best of us."   
  
"Thank you," Jade smiled, and nodded her party toward the chamber exit, "Because that is my quest too."   
  
They tracked back through the secondary and primary chambers, and all breathed deeply once they could at last refill their lungs with fresh early-night air. They stretched happily. Gallor stood in the shadows nearby, but did little to hide his dismay at Nib's continued existence.   
  
"You fool!" he hissed at Jade, once Nib wandered out of earshot to pack up as much as he could of the campsite with his miners dead. "Charleston too must be dead! How am I to blame the theft of the item on bandits if he is alive to say otherwise! Finish the task or you get nothing from me!"   
  
Jade smirked. "Now now, ask nicely…"   
  
Gallor blanched. "W-"   
  
It was cut short by his feminine scream of pain as Montaron lacerated his calf from behind. He dropped to the stony ground, busting the back of his hooded head.   
  
Charleston sprang up from his campsite far away, but couldn't make anything out in the new-fallen darkness. Soon, however, he saw what they all did. Xan nearly fainted, Montaron stopped short of hacking through Gallor's neck, and the others emitted gasps of disbelief. A ghostly figure appeared in the midst of the gravelly pit, seven feet tall; its figures were blurred but basically humanoid in shape, an armored humanoid at that like some spectral knight; most prominently of all it carried a flaming sword.   
  
Jade hissed, "What in the 999 layers of the…."   
  
The creature's bellow filled the night sky. "IthNal cOR dan KOZAH! Rrrackne dall'a osa KOZAH!"   
  
The party fell into cohesive battle-formation; Jade held her bastard sword ready, flanked by Branwen and Kagain with hammer and axe; Montaron peeked out around the tall cleric with his crossbow, and the three mages formed a line behind the warriors, second-guessing the best spells for this strange creature. From his vantage, Charleston Nib turned and bolted with a cry of terror, leaving his belongings behind.   
  
Jade cried, "Speak common, you abomination! I cannot fathom your words!"   
  
The ghost-knight advanced and groaned, "Nott for theeee to underssstand…neeed only dieee while yooouuuu hold…idolll does soo comannnnnnd…..Eltor anSle osa KOZAH!"   
  
The other six all turned to Montaron. "Idol?" the halfling blushed. "Oh… _that _'idol'. I thought Nib said we shouldn't _idle _in the chamber, ye se, and…"   
  
"Who let Montaron be the last in the room!?" Jade snarled, and the others screamed at the halfling to get rid of the idol while the specter advanced. "Eep!" Montaron squeaked, and reached into a pouch, produced the crude stone statuette he had filched, and tossed it onto the prone Gallor's chest, right into his limp grasp.   
  
The party all retreated from Gallor, and the ghost-knight fell upon him. The thief screamed as the flaming sword came down, tossing the idol into the air at the party. He was snuffed out as the sword burnt his head to a cinderpile more than severed it. The stone artifact flew right for Xan. He instinctively caught it; the good elvish reflexes damned him.   
  
"IthNal cOR dan osa KOZAH!" the ghost-knight's terrifying deep cry resounded, and Xan froze up in shock while his companions screamed at him to toss it, but none dared grab and hurl it away. The specter fell upon the elf, not attacking, but moving _into _him, and seemed to vanish.   
  
All was quiet for a moment, everyone looking at Xan, who remained petrified "Ah…" Edwin smiled, "I suppose that takes care of that. Perhaps the forest-frolicker's innate pansy-magic or his unstylish robe's abjurations simply disp-"   
  
Xan's eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites showed, and his mouth opened. "Rrrackne dall'a osa KOZAH!" His head turned, and turned, and turned, and kept turning, making an impossible complete rotation. "YOU ARE ALL DOOMED!" he bellowed, and force-vomited his morning gruel right into Edwin's face.   
  
Kagain whimpered. Montaron howled. Xzar shrieked. Branwen swore. Jade gasped. Edwin retched. Then 'Xan' crouched like a lion and leapt over their heads, thrice his own height into the air and framed for a moment by the glimmering moon, landing fifty feet away across the campsite. "SWEET GODS!" the six companions all cried.   
  
The possessed elf dashed into the darkness, chanting the unfathomable refrain with the punctuating "KOZAH…..". A minute later, several sounds echoed back. The energy hum of the moonblade whizzing through the air, and the hissing of magical burn as it sliced flesh open, followed by Charleston Nib's bloodcurdling scream, cut short with a bone-crack, and then a full minute of wet chewing.   
  
"We never come back," Jade stated like the finality of a death-knell. Montaron broke from their shared, frozen shock, and looted Gallor with practiced efficiency, catching up in moments while the others bolted, winding their way out of the rocky ravine. They dashed northeast across wooded fields, overland to Beregost with dire fervor, and did not stop to camp that night until the moon was high.   
  
The elven enchanter possessed by the forgotten god loped its way north at an animal speed. The large game it passed instinctively fled, but even the fleet deer the aberration hunted down, slaying and devouring them with monstrous speed and appetite. But it was drawn, either by the god's hunger for means of power or for some fusion with the Greycloak, to the scent of magic, and thus the strongest such source within many leagues. The High Hedge.


	37. O Captain My Captain

**37. O Captain, My Captain **  
  
The thoughts of Onyx and Imoen were bittersweet for resting on their wayward sister and angry pal. Though her ends remained their own, they wondered at her means. The company she now kept was evil and mean, and Jaheira had lectured them of the supposed implications of their affiliations. Onyx, for his part, had noted that they themselves harbored a Sharran, and his guardian's response had made no secret of her regard of the drow in question, who had, of course, overheard, and made her opinions of the half-elven druid equally plain.   
  
It was only Garrick and Minsc who were talkative or in a light mood, then, as the day waned to its end and they came upon a foul sight – the strewn wreckage of a caravan, and the mangled, fly-swarmed remains of its occupants. The party's faces went grim, save Viconia's, which was merely curious.   
  
Two living figures were about – an armored man further off, beyond the wreckage, and a blonde woman before it, bearing on them now.   
  
"Please!" she cried in every sense, "I beg of you to go no further! Brage is there, strewn about with the carnage he has wrought! I have tried to reason with him but it is as if he is possessed by another's soul. It was all I could do to flee the swing of his tremendous blade. Please, unless you wish to witness madness in a once-good man, leave him be and pray the spirit leaves him in good time."   
  
Onyx frowned. "Who is this Brage you speak of?"   
  
"Before this curse befell him, he was Captain of the Guard in Nashkel. I am his cousin, Laryssa. For all the bonds of love and blood, save him from his present agony if there be a way to do so."   
  
The party's humor chilled; they had heard this news in the town's tavern, on the night they met Minsc.   
  
"He is hardly our concern," Viconia opined.   
  
Onyx looked at her through thin, unamused eyes. "There was a reward, you know."   
  
"Then by all means, paladin, do the noble thing."   
  
"Have you yet to notice, Sharran, how oft it brings profit?"   
  
"Your sister's dwarf noted that such rewards come oft from taxes. 'Twoud seem people are more generous with others' purses, than their own."   
  
Onyx faltered, then looked back to Laryssa, and past her; making out Brage in the low light, who stormed about in his armor, chuckling madly and swinging his sword through the air.   
  
" 's a lot like Bassilus…" Imoen cringed.   
  
"We know how that ended," Jaheira sighed.   
  
Onyx's eyes bored harder, divining. After a moment, he announced, "The evil lies in the sword, not the man."   
  
"A cursed blade," Viconia smiled, "How quaint. A drow warrior would never fall for such a remedial ruse."   
  
Jaheira glared. "Have you the power to remove it, dark cleric, or is racial preening a compensation for weak faith?"   
  
Viconia snarled at her.   
  
"That'd be a no," Jaheira smirked.   
  
Onyx winced, and looked at Laryssa. "I will do what I can."   
  
The woman smiled with a new calm. "We all do."   
  
Leaving Varscona in its scabbard and his shield upon his back, he marched forward alone, with raised, empty hands, scrunching his nose against the rancor of death. Brage continued to prance about in some murderous fantasy. Onyx stopped at a comfortably distance until he was noticed.   
  
The madman grinned. "I pray you left a trail of crumbs to lead us all back again. The others did not, so they have decided to stay. Shall we try to find the way home together?"   
  
"Yes, my friend, noble Captain Brage," Onyx answered, nearly gagging on the rot-stench, "Let us go home."   
  
The man recoiled suspiciously, and pointed a single index finger skyward. "A riddle! I pose you a riddle, the answer to which I once knew, but I now cannot perceive. Remind me, and we shall all return unto the day. Fail, and stay with me in the dark, forgetting whence we came…"   
  
"…IT has neither mouth, nor teeth. Yet, it eats its food steadily. It has neither village, nor home, nor hands, nor feet; yet it wanders everywhere. It has neither country nor means, nor office, nor pen; yet it is ready for fight – always. By day and by night there is wailing about it. It has no breath, yet to all it appears."   
  
In spite of the dire nature of the situation, Onyx actually rolled his eyes. Riddles weren't so uncommon in Candlekeep, and Xzar had been a great fan of playing the 'riddle-posing madman' in Paladin-Princess-Evil-Wizard.   
  
_"Ahem!" called the reedy blonde boy from the top of the library steps, waving his staff and skull menacingly. "Cower before me, simpleton villagers! I, Xzar the Black, the Wizard of Death," he held his skull up extra-high, "Have kidnapped your beautiful princess…" _  
  
Onyx thought for a moment more, and smiled. "Death."   
  
The mad captain shrieked, and fell to the ground, the blade dragging on the dirt. "The end of night!" he cried, shielding his eyes from the paladin. "Where the light shines unto mine eyes and I can see clearly once again! What hath I wrought? 'Tis horrible, HORRIBLE!!!"   
  
Onyx stepped forward, reaching out an empty gauntlet, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the captain's hand might peel from the accursed blade, and take his. "Come, my brother," he whispered. "Nashkel. It is safe, it is secure, and it is home." In his mind's eye, he saw not the hamlet, but the sealed walls of Candlekeep.   
  
"Oh, yes!" Brage screamed. "I will welcome the block that must await me at Nashkel! How could I live with what I've done! Please, thou must guide me to the town that I might pay for my crimes! I fear I can keep my senses for only so long, and I must not be allowed to do this again! Too many good people have lost their lives to me! Please…"   
  
"We shall see you back safe," Onyx declared, "Killing you will not help those that have died. We shall take you to the temple of Helm there, in hopes you may be healed."   
  
Brage still refused the hand, and doubled over the hilt of his clutched weapon, weeping. "I fear I can do nothing for those I've wronged whether I live or die, and I still know now what led me to this. It's like a foul presence in my mind! I can only image that I have finally succumbed to battle fatigue. Take my weapon!" he shouted, "That I might not harm another!"   
  
He undoubled, strength rising again, but his eyes clearer, and he pushed the blade outward, freeing his hands from the handle in one push. It thunked on the soil, and Onyx did his best to clamp his boot over the blade with a calm step.   
  
"Use it if thy wish," Brage nodded, noticing, misinterpreting, but not averse to the move, "Though I'd rather it be destroyed. Innocent blood on everything! I'd only just acquired the sword. Such a waste this has been. Take me to Nashkel, I can bear this no longer…"   
  
  
------------------------   
  
  
"…no!" Captain Brage shielded his eyes again as the open gauntlet of Helm loomed large, above the double doors of Nashkel's house for the Watcher. "I cannot show my face after what I've done!" Jaheira and Khalid held the doors open wide, Onyx and Minsc gripped the humility-crazed captain firmly and, in truth, immobile as they dragged him up the steps. "Just give me to the guard that I might take my punishment as I should! Do not disgrace me further in front of Helm!"   
  
"Calm yourself, Brage!" commanded a voice that echoed throughout the marble hall, and Brage went pale, as if the voice of Helm himself had uttered this edict with a flash of lightning. It was merely the town cleric, Nalin, a regal sight in his own right, standing tall in his vestments at the altar. "Helm sees all that he wishes, and knows much of what you do not. IT was your hands indeed that did many a foul deed, but it was not your will alone. Intent is vital, and yours was influenced without your knowledge. Justice will be done, but with atonement, not punishment."   
  
"But my crimes!" Brage bawled as the ranger and paladin set him down to kneel before the altar. "My family! I don't want to go on!"   
  
Nalin's shake of the head dismissed this plea. "If you are returned to the garrison, yours will be the only willful killing that has occurred about this matter. It would be a waste of your life which, fractured though it is, can still contribute much. Helm will see you through. As for our intrepid friends here," the priest's gaze lifted to the eight adventurers, "I shall exceed the reward offered by Oublek. After all, it was the same task of bringing Brage to justice. The Temple is in your debt for the return of its lost son."   
  
Imoen grinned ear-to-ear, and Garrick applauded. Onyx tipped his helmed head. Were this a house of Lathander, he would have knelt. Jaheira and Khalid nodded politely, and made an odd but friendly gesture that Nalin seemed to make nothing of.   
  
"Boo says a good deed is its own reward, but any gold will shine the Boots of Justice, and evil backside shall be visible in the reflection as it grows nearer and nearer. Stand vigilant, heroes and Watchers, villains in the mirror are closer than they appears!"   
  
Dynaheir, nonchalant to her bodyguard's enthusiasm, performed an exotic, regal curtsy in her indigo robes, hinting at a dusky calf and thigh through the split. "Voluptuous sow," Viconia scoffed. Before the witch could return a dismissive frown, the drow turned and purred to the village shaman. "So…exactly how much reward are we talking?"   
  
  
------------------------   
  
  
Once the moon loomed straight overhead of the High Hedge, the _thing _that was the union of the lost power Kozah, and its chosen vessel Xan, was upon the place too. It bowled over a troupe of skeletons ambling under the midnight sky by ripping the skull from one and smashing it through the next. A pack of flinds, creatures beastly and even less organized than their cousins, the gnolls, heard the noise and made their own territorial howls. This goaded the thing, which jumped into their midst, carving through crude armor and thick hide with the Moonblade that either could not recognize how far from elvendom its possessed possessor had strayed, or knew but was powerless to resist The triumphant beast indulged its unending hunger upon their blood, muscle, and marrow, and then turned to what it truly craved, the magical power radiating from within the octagonal fortress.   
  
From wooded shadows at a great distance, the night-eyes of second elf watched all this in silent reverie, one of the few individuals who could have found levity in his thoughts being turned from their melancholy waking dreams to the ghastly sight played out in the present.   
  
Xan ripped the great Hedge doors from their wrought-iron hinges, and flung them over his shoulders. He marched through with his Moonblade coming in hand again. Flesh golems barreled down the hallways flanking the anteroom, and through the inner arch in front, the runecast dais of Thalantyr crackled with heightened energy while the man himself was already very much aware, and had raised a half-dozen abjurations to protect himself from sword and spell.   
  
While the flesh golems reached the anteroom and pounded their ham-fists down upon the alien elf, Thalantyr launched a quintet of magic missiles. They flashed useless against the enchanter's magical shield while he rolled away from the falling fists, then snapped up, carving through an arm, then cutting back and severing skinless muscle and tendon until the creature's halves fell aside. The other smashed its fist from both sides, and Thalantyr flung arrows of flame through the archway. Xan leapt into the air over the fists, an uppercut of the magical sword opening what would pass for the creature's chest and then swiping around horizontally to remove what passed for its head. The magical arrows hit the elf in flaming bursts, but burned much less than they should, and their target took no heed as he fell to the floor again, dragging his sword through the flesh golem once more. Once his feet touched the ground, the construct was only so much meat once more.   
  
"Begone, dark lord of a dead age!" Thalantyr bellowed in defiance, his lair's magics echoing his voice like a god's, as his hands calmly worked the somatic components of his next spell, "The sands of time swallow you once more, and forever!"   
  
"THE BRACERS…..NETHERIL…." Kozah bellowed as _it _stormed through the archway, punching out stone. "MY BRACERS… THIEF….YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT UNDER SANDS, THALANTYR, IF THERE YOU WANT I…HO HO HO HO HO…"   
  
It then pulled from its indigo robes the head of archaeologist Charleston Nib. Gripping it by the gray hair, it flung it over the dais and the crystal. Thalantyr swallowed as he recognized the face of the man that was the grain of truth behind 'Neverwinter Jones', and an old colleague and friend.   
  
The wizard now cast upon the creature's mind rather than body, trying to wrest control from what now held sway with a bombardment of psionic rays. The reawakening avatar would have none of this, and leapt up onto the edge of the dais, then crouched, and sprung clear atop the giant crystal.   
  
"YOUR MIND TRICKS FOOL ONLY THE WEAK-WILLED," it laughed, now capturing the chamber's deific acoustics for itself. "HO HO HO HO HO..."   
  
Thalantyr's forehead beaded with sweat, but his arms and voice weaved spell without error while Kozah plunged Xan's moonblade down into a top face of the crystal, which emitted a high, whining _scream _, and its glow dimmed. The crystal went dark as the blade was drawn out again, itself now glowing no longer electric blue but now a pure but hollow white.   
  
Thalantyr launched his lightning bolt at the flying creature. His aim was true, but the creature swung its mutated moonblade into the bolt and batted it straight back for its caster. The bolt passed into one of the Hedge wizard's globes, doing naught to his body as it made its way out the other side, and then the elf fell, landing on the near edge of the and slashing the white-light blade through the spheres, cylinders, and discs of protection enshrouding Thalantyr. They flickered and vanished, and he turned to flee, but the thing leapt upon his back, driving the Moonblade between his shoulderblades and out through his chest. It jerked the magical blade, and pulled with its other arm. Thalantyr's head popped from his shoulders, the spine slithering out with it while the mouth froze in its ceased last scream.   
  
A freckled, robed young man appeared in the far anteroom, right before this spectacle.   
  
"M-master…?" Melicamp asked sleepily, having sensed something amiss even through the silencing ward of his modest chambers. He ceased rubbing his eyes and looked out of them instead. He squawked once, froze up, and went pale.   
  
Xan leapt upon the apprentice, and began to feed.   
  
"TASTES LIKE CHICKEN…." It bellowed from a blood-spattered maw.


	38. Sirines Incognito

**38. Sirines Incognito **  
  
She emerged from the water, singing and shaking out her hair while foam splashed up on the rocks. Hair, dark brown with the water, clung to a tattooed and sun-lavished shoulder, but she slung her head around and looked back out to the sea, her mind filling with thoughts of high adventure.   
  
While she stepped lightly over the pebble beach, scarcely making a single marbly clink, she heard drunken chanteys in her ears, slurred come-ons more closely, and felt hands groping through the leathers she hadn't yet put back on.   
  
She smirked uneasily, and stepped onto the grass and knelt before her things, but she also climbed up the rigging to a crow's nest, and there was the first mate, with his goatee and earrings, and saucy tongue. As she dried herself, he did the rubbing, and as her silks and leathers went on, they went off.   
  
Her face turned upward, inland. "They're all fools…" she whispered to herself. "Without position. Without pull. Without asset or skill to offer or any reason to deserve…what? Deserve what?"   
  
"I don't know what I want", she admitted, and her shoulders slumped, the wet hair bouncing on them. "I had money and comfort, so I sought adventure. I found out adventure was to seek money and comfort. Now…"   
  
She strapped two bowie knives and a number of short tossing daggers to her person, most disappearing from casual sight. "…I don't have either…"   
  
She slung her light rucksack over her back, and took a stride inland "…but I will."   
  
  
----   
  
  
They'd spent the night at Nashkel's inn, this time not having to fight an assassin on their way from the door to the bar. The tavern had been abuzz with talk of his sister's deed clearing the town's mines, and this made Onyx frown. Not with envy or anything like that, but he didn't want either of them gathering such attention, it would mean more assassins. It seemed like news of their own 'rescue' of Brage had traveled from the church to the inn faster than they themselves had walked up the street, and on their last stay in Beregost, the news of Bassilus's slaying had spread around town like the seasonal plague before they'd left the next morning.   
  
It was a horrible feeling for him. Not just the obvious mortal fear, which the shining armor storybooks by so cavalierly insisting surmountable had failed to do anything to help surmount, but the rue of reputation. All his training it had been an ideal. Not pride or fame, but its meaning. It meant good had been done, it was supposed to inspire others to do the same, or at least to exceed in their own pursuits. _Athleticism, heroism, creativity, knoweldge, excellence...this is the dawn we bring. _Now, he had compromised this ideal, much as the sortie against the Flaming Fist and Ajantis Ilvastarr had made him compromise others.   
  
Onyx had made the same jog before dawn, unfortunately not stepping over another set of ankheg armor, but he did see the same farmwife, to inform her in the gentlest possible way that she was now a widow. He left her with a greenstone ring upon the table and tears upon her face, but with the promise that his quest would avenge Joseph. The murdering kobold might be dead, as was the kobold's half-orcish master, but he had a master somewhere else, and he perhaps a master beyond. Justice was going to find them all.   
  
Unless, the paladin now thought with a gulp, death found him first. His party now marched up the Sword Coast, not along the road from Nashkel to Beregost, but along the coast itself. The road was the domain of the assassins and bandits. Onyx and Minsc had had a mind to take it _because _of this, to find them, to fight them, to rid themselves of the possible poisoners of their meals, the daggers in the night, thieves and murderers of innocent travelers, and to rid this world of characters more at home in the lower planes. Jaheira had had choice words to the contrary, Khalid had all but repeated them, if translated into a dialect of politeness, and Dynaheir had thought this wisdom. They were better to follow their leads, to seek the heart of the kraken without battling each of its tentacles. Every battle was another chance of failure, any sword or arrow might be the last. Onyx didn't argue with his shepherds, Minsc didn't question his witch (or his hamster, who reportedly took her side); Imoen wasn't too thrilled by the thought of a highway knee-deep in hobgoblins either, and Garrick feared the bad poetics of the assassins might poison his muse. Viconia had been neutral.   
  
So it was that a lighthouse loomed ahead, through the rain-streaked sky. Droplets flicked harmlessly off Onyx's waxed, rustproofed splintmail, and the salty air reminded Imoen and him sharply of home. Viconia enjoyed the rain; the dense, dark clouds almost passed for a true roof on the world, and the burning ball the idiotic paladin worshipped did not blight her eyes. "Woman," she announced with a smile, happy for once during the daytime to be able to see things before the mongrel druid or her socially crippled male. It was true, a lady ran for them, her commoner's skirt lifted. "She has no weapons, her peasant's dress no mage robes. Though I don't know that is good. It seems the armed ones always want to kill us, but the unarmed ones always beg some some providence of deed, which you fools every time oblige."   
  
"Vic.." Onyx sighed, "Please."   
  
The drow looked confused. " _Pleeze? _"   
  
"It's something we say in common when we're asking nicely."   
  
Jaheira added, "Like say, to spare the diatribe."   
  
"Ah.." Viconia nodded, ignoring the druid, "My home tongue would have no translation for such a thing."   
  
"'Tis such a surprise," Dynaheir remarked.   
  
Viconia seethed at the surface females until the new one came upon them, screaming, "Please help me!"   
  
The drow looked at the paladin with a smirk. "I was right, Onyx. I always am." But he, of course, was intent on the damsel in distress of the day, who continued her plea.   
  
"I don't know where else to turn!" she cried, letting her mud-streaked skirt fall again, "My little boy was playing in the abandoned lighthouse to the northwest when a pack of worgs surrounded it."   
  
"We'll get him," Onyx stated flatly and started to move past her.   
  
"Please," she stopped him, "Just turn them back, I can coax him down. There's not much time!"   
  
"Okay," Onyx said, while Minsc nodding furiously and taking his three-yews-woods' composite longbow off his back.   
  
On the paladin's other side, Viconia smiled at the woman, whose eyes bulged at first noting the dark face. "Mmm...they're so very easy to order about, aren't they, sister?"   
  
"W-what?" the woman recoiled from the drow.   
  
"I said we're going!" Onyx barked at the party cleric, he and Minsc broke into long strides and made for the tower. The party followed suit, but Viconia hung back a moment.   
  
"'Tis clever, and that I admire," she bowed to the lady in a subtly mockery of the manner she might have a drow matron a century ago.   
  
The woman spoke again, but in a very different voice. It was enchanting and musical, as fluid as water. "Truly, you can't understand how rarely I am appreciated."   
  
"Actually..." Viconia sighed, eyes growing distant. "...I...am one who can."   
  
"Ardrouine," the shapeshifted sirine bowed politely. "The lighthouse has a cave to my underwater home, I do not wish my back door so guarded against me."   
  
"Viconia deVir," the drow bowed again with no bodily sarcasm. "The caves to my home are guarded against me forevermore."   
  
She ran, soon catching up in her light ankheg mail. Onyx and Khalid now had their longbows drawn, they and the ranger all trained on the only visible gate in the wall around the decrepit lighthouse. The howling and scratching could be heard within. Then, oddly, Minsc started to make animal sounds of his own. At first the others save Dynaheir grew wary, afraid he was falling into some lupine variant of his berserk fits, but it proved to be a ploy to draw the worgs' attention and get them scrambling out the gate, clawed paws firm on slippery mud and wet grass.   
  
The warriors unleashed their arrows; Imoen shot her own and Garrick clicked off a bolt; the cleric, druid, and mage each slung a bullet at the creatures. Worgs howled as missiles pierced furry flesh or beaned their muzzles, most kept running. But another hail came, and then a third, and not a single of the pack of wolf-beasts made it to the party's heels.   
  
"Do you see the boy?" Onyx asked Viconia.   
  
She made a pretense of scanning carefully, and with a faint smirk answered, "No, I don't."   
  
They moved within the gate, cautiously, but found no more worgs, only their leavings. Oddly, they saw or heard nothing of the woman's son. At least they returned to Ardrouine, and announced the modest victory, but no sight of the son.   
  
"Thank you so much," the woman thanked them in a genuine, homely voice. "You've probably scared him as much as the worgs! I'll coax him down once you've left. Here, this money is all my husband brought back from the market this past week but take it. My son's life is worth this and so much more."   
  
She offered a small coin pouch that was not refused. Viconia gave Ardrouine one last, private glance before the party moved on. "'Tis a relief your vows are not so silly to the exclusion of just rewards," she mused to Onyx.   
  
"Lathander does not shun or vilify wealth," he answered, in a manner that was half recitory, half his own. "Especially not that well earned in good deeds, and invested toward more of the same. Ilmater believes in poverty, Lathander in productivity. He recognizes the mortal incentives of even the purest hearts, whose stomachs must be fed, bodies dressed and armored, hands armed, and desires entertained."   
  
From behind them, Dynaheir voiced. "You make it sound as though he borrows the mantle of Waukeen."   
  
"Friends often share."   
  
"Yes..." she smiled, "They do." She straightened down her new robes, woven against fire, and in prescription with Xzar's explanation of such things, now her Favorite Color, indigo.   
  
They trudged on, north along the rainy coast for what the absent sun did nothing to help indicate as another half an hour, before Viconia spotted another woman in the distance. Briefly, she found herself wondering just how many incognito sirines might be parading the coastland. Leather hugged her legs and sashaying hips, continuing up her torso but stopping just as soon as it acceptably could, leaving only two straps to make the final journey up her collar and over the shoulders out of sight. An iron band wrung the neck, probably a device to keep the auburn-tressed head from being lopped off, though Viconia found the metal collar highly reminiscent of the sort she'd delightfully dressed choice male house-slaves in so long ago. The face was still smooth but Viconia found the evidence of fled youth distinctly human, and no less than thee golden rings decorated the ear and hand each that she could see.   
  
Viconia announced the passer to her party, and also noticed the woman seemed to notice them. She had been angling toward the water, now she was making straight for them over the wet grasses. The rest of the party each made her out in turn, and feeling less than threatened by one against eight – though with the many addled heads in the land, a fight was not precluded – made for her. Onyx raised an empty right gauntlet at one point, waving, and the figure waved back, needlessly swinging her hips in counterbalance to the arm.   
  
"Aaye!" her call was salty and husky, like that of a pirate wench or land-bandit, and also rather eager. Her gait grew into a saunter as she drew up, and just before the distance at which the party would have stopped, she didn't, rather, she turned around and walked slowly, as if letting them catch up with her and already deciding she was with them, although she almost made it seem like she was assuming they were the ones with her.   
  
The party faltered for a moment at this odd or bold move, each coming to a stop, but as she took the next step with a purpose, Onyx found himself breaking into stride again, dumbly following her, just to parlay.   
  
_Nice bluff _, Viconia smirked, already giving the woman a certain admiration, though the drow know no kind other than that for an worthy adversary. She followed suit, and one by one, the party found themselves walking along, de facto letting this strange woman walk with them.   
  
Jaheira found herself taking maximal strides as if getting in front or at least alongside this woman were some mark of dominance, while Onyx had come along her right already, and named each of the party.   
  
Refusing to notice as Jaheira came up on her left, she turned right to look at Onyx out of low eyelids, then let them flick over her shoulder, moving over each member in turn, but resting distinctly longer on the men. "Well, good sirs," she at last spoke, in her husky tone, "You may call me Safana. You'll have to excuse me if I sound startled," she continued, in a voice that was anything but, "In the south where I come from they don't grow their men as big as you."   
  
"And where's that, Safana?" Onyx asked, in a polite tone that masked a vague irritation.   
  
She smiled. " _Calimshan, _" she pronounced the word in an exotic a tone as possible.   
  
Onyx looked over his shoulder, and Khalid shrugged. He wouldn't have known from her accent, though it was colored anyway. "Me too!" he spoke from what was now the middle row of the walking group. "A p-p-p…p-p-p-p-p-…..nice to meet, miss Safana."   
  
Safana's eye roved to the half-elf, a faint, entertained giggle at the stutter. "And you, mister Khalid," she smiled sweetly. Onyx blocked Jaheira's humorless glare from hthe woman's eyes, but it had been aimed at her husband anyway, who most certainly noticed.   
  
"Anyhow," Safana shrugged, turning back to Onyx, "If you want, I have a way to make you all fabulously wealthy. In my possession I have a map that gives the location of an old pirate treasure trove. According to the writings on the map, it's where the legendary Black Alaric dumped his treasure before being captured by the Amnish fleets! You interested in hearing more?"   
  
"By all means, on with the story," Onyx shrugged.   
  
Safana shot him a knowing smirk, and then let her gaze trail over her shoulder again, this time shifting between Garrick (who guiltily jerked away from studying her leather-wrapped posterior) and Minsc (who innocently jerked away from staring into space), "The reason why I need so many heroic men is that the caverns where I wish to go are guarded by some sort of creature, which kind I couldn't tell you."   
  
"Describe them," Onyx said, while making a beckoning gesture with his hand. At first Safana simply placed hers in it, but when he communicated back an impatient sigh, she feigned a moment of embarrassment, and then reached into a belt-pouch to find and hand him a map. While he studied it, she answered, "Giants without skin?" with a shrug.   
  
"Flesh golems," Dynaheir answered first, from beside her spaced-out ranger.   
  
"Thalantyr had some," Onyx remembered, which brought another memory, particularly regarding Dynaheir. He looked over his shoulder at the witch. "There's a place near here, the High Hedge, where a wizard sells magical gear. With more means, and a wizard-"   
  
"Hey now!" Garrick exclaimed.   
  
"Eh, with more magic-users, and more gold, we were headed there. It's on the way to Beregost as it is."   
  
"Anyhow!" Safana repeated loudly, "If you help me, I'll let you share in the treasure."   
  
Onyx stated, "Each of our party receives equal shares for our endeavors. If we undertake this one, so will you."   
  
"How nice," Safana met his gaze, and smiled. She didn't get the sense they'd have it any other way. More importantly, what she really lacked wasn't treasure, but a place in a profitable or enjoyable outfit. Still with his gaze, she dropped her tone and added, "I may be grateful in other ways, as well."   
  
"We're all grateful for allies," Jaheira spoke near from the woman's other shoulder.   
  
"Of course," Safana's final acknowledged of the abreast woman was curt.   
  
"Which you aren't."   
  
Even her own party was taken aback by Jaheira's bluntness.   
  
"Would it be ahead or past?" Onyx broke the awkward silence, lifting his chin, indicating forward; the bit of coastline he could see didn't do much to place them on the crude and water-smudged man.   
  
"Ahead," Safana stated. "On our way, really. Not much further, along a small peninsula. From what the map showed, the pirate cove is located north along the coast, just south of Candlekeep."   
  
Onyx's heart went in two ways at once, and he looked back to Imoen, seeing the same in her face. Then he looked past Safana, to his guardian, with a diplomatic smile. "It's all but on the way." Jaheira's face remained harsh.   
  
"Treasuretreasuretreasure…." Imoen gabbed from the back of the group. "Pirate treasure! Woohoo!" Garrick chuckled at her antics, and nodded, as did Viconia. Dynaheir and Khalid shrugged.   
  
"The meat puppets will meet the shiny new cleaver of Minsc, and the pirate treasure will climb aboard the privateer of justice! Boo parrots my sentiments."   
  
Jaheira sighed, outvoted.   
  
"Let's check it out, then," Onyx told Safana.   
  
"But of course," she answered with a playful smile and her tongue clamped between her teeth. When Onyx started after a second, she went on, "Ohh, thank you. You won't regret your decision. I know that powerful heroes like you will easily push through any obstacles in our path." She winked slowly and deliberately at him.   
  
Jaheira groaned with her full voice. Onyx clenched his teeth behind closed lips, and then smiled politely. "Perhaps our bard can fit such elegant poetics into his current work."   
  
Garrick gaped, at a loss for a riposte, but Imoen giggled hysterically. She started sashaying her hips in her gait, running her hands up and down the length of her body, flinging her hood off and shooting the stunned bard a come-hither stare. "Oooh," she hissed a sultry whisper, and then flicked her hand out, splaying the fingers across Garrick's chainmailed shoulder, "I just know that powerful heroes like you will easily push through any obstacles in our path…" her other hand went to her raindrop-splattered mouth, and she gasped. "Oh! If I'm startled, it's cuz they don't grow their men quite as big as you…" she waved her hand down the length of Garrick, whose jaw was hanging near his brooch, and then hugged herself, moaning, and tossing her now-wet hair back.   
  
All heads were turned, and from the front, Jaheira was smiling wickedly at Safana, who now faced dead forward, and hid within her own hood of unruly air, but between the strands, a reddening was visible even on the copper cheeks. Dynaheir and Viconia also snickered openly; Onyx and Khalid were trying to be polite and biting their tongues, but still let escape a chuckle or two apiece. Minsc scratched his bald head, but beside it Boo was squeaking in rapid, distinctively giggle-like, bursts. Imoen continued to sashay and moan, and made as if unfastening her enchanted leathers and yanking them asunder.   
  
"She and I grew up in Candlekeep," Onyx explained to Safana, "Widely learned, as you can see."   
  
"Charming…" Safana gritted her teeth, and her eyes flicked back between him and the girl several times. "But there is no substitute for experience, they say."   
  
"But by nature, there's no point in taking your word for that. I must judge it for myself."   
  
"Mmmhmm, precisely."   
  
The peninsula came into view north and west; if the rain had let up and the air cleared of the misting, the top spire of Candlekeep would have sat on the horizon due north. Safana led them down a sloping path amongst the rocky cliffs that terraced much of the local coastline. They walked along the last stripe of grass between the cliff walls and the sandy shoals right at the water, where waves crashed against rocks, even spraying the party now. The rain splattered the pebble beach, which wound around the peninsula.   
  
Then the party heard them, voices singing, beautiful, and indescribable. Onyx wanted to smile, to sit down and relax, or to stretch his arms forth and cry to the heavens. Then they can around a bend in the cliff and saw them, there on the pebble beach, and Onyx simply wanted something more. Four ladies, their features slight, elven beyond elven, pale aquamarine, and utterly revealed, not even bothering with the silk slips of Keldath Ormlyr's temple nymphs.   
  
"Sirines," Viconia sneered.   
  
Jaheira snarled at Safana as if about to become a wolf and eat her. "You-"   
  
"I'd no idea!" the lady protested.   
  
"Wait, wait, wait…" Onyx held up his hands. Meanwhile, one of the four turned directly to the party, her face was of course quite elegant, soft and feminine and precious, but her liquid eyes were quite harsh. "…they're just sirines. Beautiful creatures! I'm gonna have four of my own, these four, and a big bright temple of Lathander just like father Ormlyr, yeah, beautiful creatures, huh?"   
  
The party was tensing, in that unpleasant moment where one wants neither to trigger needless aggression by drawing, nor be caught having not done so. Safana, however, grabbed at her thighs and slid out bowie knives. Her companions balked at this untried ally's escalation until what she shouted clarified the inevitable. This woman, though far from a practitioner of magic, had an innate sense and even slight command of one strain of enchantment.   
  
"Onyx is Charmed!"


	39. Kill Drizzt

The mighiest man may be slain by one arrow.   
  
-Pippin

I'm still the prettiest!   
  
-Legolas, _The V. Secret Diaries _  
  
  
  
**39. Kill Drizzt **  
  
Jade's party did not rise with the dawn; they had run late into the night, fleeing their possessed party member, Xan. And when their paranoia was finally surpassed by fatigue, they camped hidden amongst shrubs and trees. Their dreams were not pleasant, but what the Greycloak had truly done at that late hour surpassed even the worst of their nightmares.   
  
Jade crawled past a snoring Branwen out of their tent, blearily making out the bright crimson blob that she knew to be her party conjurer, Edwin. But as she rubbed and blinked her emerald eyes, she was treated for a shock – some dark-haired woman was crouched over a morning campfire, helping herself to their foodstuffs.   
  
"Thief!" Jade snarled, springing up and closing the yards from her tent to the campfire. The woman started, but before she could move Jade had her arms around the neck from behind, grasping around a necklace to squeeze the throat. "You walked into the wrong campsite, bandit wench!"   
  
"Gag-aieee!" the woman shrieked, "It's meeeeee! Eddieeee!"   
  
Jade snarled; the woman had stolen Edwin's precious robes and necklace. "Edwin!" she shouted, hoping to wake her fellow. "Everyone, to arms, to arms! Bandit!"   
  
Tents were already rustling, woken by the earlier noises. Branwen had slipped out after Jade, ready to answer the call with her magical weapon of choice called right into her hand. The bawdy snoring from the short pup-tents that Kagain and Montaron fit into were cut short; the halfling scuttled out with a dagger between his teeth, and the dwarf crawled out of his artificial cave with a hatchet in hand. They converged on the screaming woman, ready to pound, hack, and stab her into a nice bacon-breakfast until Xzar, clutching a headless teddy bear, popped out of the tent and screeched, "Waaiiaiaiaiiaiaiait!!! Lord Lollipop commands the good puppets listen!"   
  
The rest turned, Jade lightening her death-grip just enough for the woman to take in a great heaving sigh.   
  
"Where's Edwin?" Jade demanded, looking into Edwin's crimson-with-gold-trim tent (she reminded herself to force himself to by something less conspicuous once they finally made it back to a town).   
  
"Right there…" Xzar pointed his decapitated plush toy at the woman. "Here's right there. Well….most of him is, anyway."   
  
"She…" Jade looked in disgust at the woman. "Did you eat him?" she resumed shaking the woman. "DID YOU EAT OUR THAYVIAN??"   
  
"No, no!!" Xzar bounded over, and waved Jade off.   
  
The woman sat there, grasping her red neck. "You…" she caught her breath, and then hissed, "I _am _Edwin, you inbred sow! (Really, you'd think these yokels had never heard of Transmutation. It may take a rear coach seat to certain others schools I could name, but ignoring its existence is taking things a touch far. Now, Divination, _that _the world could do without.)"   
  
Jade frowned. "Is this…some wizard thing?"   
  
"To the point," the woman with the waterfall of curly midnight hair began, brushing down her robes, and adjusting the purplish amulet in her bosom, "A magical item thing. I have been polymorphed into a female of our species. (Though, technically, I suspect these westerners took a jaunt down a more primordial branch than my esteemed ancestors chose. Ah well, burden though it is, someone's got to be the master race.)" She stood, and curtsied, in what was most certainly Edwin's adventuring robes. "Allow myself to introduce…Edwina."   
  
Xzar giggled. "It seems, mommy, our very good young friends – _no no we hate the bully we hate him _–" he slapped himself on each cheek, then blinked, smiled, and resumed, "Stumbled across a magical girdle in their own travels – mere hours after we first parted ways with them outside Candlekeep on that merry Mirtul day – two, actually, one was a protective belt Imoen has been wearing since, and it is rather fetching I must say, as well as invaluable if Monty ever feels the need to stab her…"   
  
"Aye! She'll'a deserved it, sugar-hasted li'l pixie!"   
  
Jade snarled at the halfling. "Touch her. Ever. And die."   
  
"Ah, lighten up missy."   
  
"…anyway," Xzar cocked his head, "The other, let's just call the Gender Bender Girdle, is 'cursed', which doesn't necessarily mean it's something bad, but…a bit more difficult to remove."   
  
'What!?" Jade snapped, and scowled at 'Edwina'. "You idiot! We _always _use identification spells! What if it slowly turns you into something like Xan!"   
  
"Garrick claimed he _did _identify it," Edwina insisted, studying her fingernails, which hadn't changed at all. "Apparently, either his village gossip or his street magic was a bit mistaken. (Divination. Unprofessional, unreliable stuff. I make my own point yet again.)"   
  
Montaron snickered. "O' perhaps he be playin' a little trick on ye…I would na blame him!" He chuckled until Jade silenced him with a glare.   
  
"'Twas less than wise, but what's done is done," Branwen spoke up. "I shall pray for a spell to remove the curse, but my judicious Lord has yet to grant me divine powers of that tier."   
  
"Gods," Kagain spat. "No better'n governments."   
  
"Thank you," Edwina glanced at the cleric, while tucking his amulet pendant into his cleavage, and admiring one or the other, "But I suppose there are worse bodies to be trapped within. Yours, for example."   
  
"You…kna- you wench!" Branwen gasped.   
  
"This won't interfere with your spellcasting?" Jade asked.   
  
Edwina smiled. "The arcane tongues may be spoken at any pitch, and my somatics shall be as graceful as ever. And do not think that because I am female I am now frailer!"   
  
Jade smirked. "You're scolding quite the wrong lady, lady. But it's nice to see you thinking like one." Branwen joined the smirk.   
  
Jade appraised the voluptuous 'woman' skeptically. "How come your robes still fit? Heck, how'd you plunge the neckline so fast?"   
  
"Oh mommy," Xzar giggled, "It's just like the Favorite Color Rule. 'Tis simple a Wizard Thing."   
  
Edwina stroked a lock of her curly hair, and smacked her lips, vaguely annoyed neither Jade nor Branwen carried cosmetics. "Now the Wychalarn truly has nothing on me. It might be magic, but I'm still the prettiest!"   
  
"Alright, alright," Kagain sighed, and turned to gather his things. "Equal opportunities for all, I'm sure. Let's get a move on before that demonic elf catches up."   
  
  
--   
  
  
An hour later, the snarls of a dozen gnolls were audible from over a hill. As the party crested it, their ranged weapons were readied, but Jade called a halt. There was a lake before them, but on the near shore was the gang of beasts, among which one very different figure dashed about, evading each swing of a halberd with ease. Branwen noted with a sneer that he resembled Viconia with his chiseled ebony face, flowing white hair, and the nimble movements of a thin body. His cape flashed out as he spun and ducked by the brutes, scimitars flying out from each hand and amputating or gutting with nearly every swipe. With the uncanny senses his people and their surface kin were infamous for, his head jerked at one point, even while one blade parried a halberd and the other impaled a different gnoll, to look up at the party on the hill.   
  
"All I wish is to continue my journey!" he declared, both manner and movements like a stage-fighting bard as he ripped the scimitar out of the gnoll to plant it in the one he had parried with, then spun the parrying scimitar about over his head to rip out the throat of a third gnoll before it ran him through. "Friends await, while I must suffer this tiresome dance? Does the mere mention of Drizzt attract your ilk?" He spun away again, slicing out the leg of one gnoll while blocking overhead the halberd of another, then yanking out the severing scimitar to carve an icy arc through the air that sliced clean through the waist of the parried beast.   
  
Jade gaped. "Is that…"   
  
Xzar, Montaron, and Kagain were all groaning. "Yesssss, that's _Drizzt. _" In a dreary schoolboy's unison, they recited, "Drizzt Do'Urden, the Drow Ranger. Swashbuckling Dual-Wielder and Student of…"   
  
Montaron rubbed his chin. "What _was _his name?"   
  
Xzar shrugged. "Drizzt isn't _that _famous."   
  
Jade was still staring. "Wow."   
  
"Ah, for the love of money," Kagain shook his helmed head, "Just one more of these self-style mavericks, good enough to be a hero, just roguish enough to be still risqué. Buncha elf-arse hogwash if'n ya ask me. I'll take a paladin's preaching over that slicker-n'-though maverick routine any day."   
  
Jade looked at the dwarf. "But it's…Drizzt Do'Urden! I used to _read _about him. He really is one of the most famous adventurers in the Realms, isn't he?"   
  
"Yeess…" Kagain, Montaron, and Xzar droned.   
  
Edina huffed. "Even I haven't been altogether spared rumor of his exploits. Though he's not exactly a 'hero' to us."   
  
Jade smiled. "Well, he is to me." She nodded, and her party moved forward.   
  
This apparent living legend was by now wiping the blood of the last felled gnoll from his blade. "Hail, friends," he flashed pearly teeth that gleamed against his dark skin. "So valiant an entrance, but fear not! Few are fast enough even to aid Drizzt, much less oppose him."   
  
Jade shifted a little, but extended her hand. "Jade."   
  
"Jade.." Drizzt sheathed the scimitar, and rather than shaking the hand, bent and kissed it. "Pray tell, Jade, what trouble brings such a lovely lass to such barbaric lands?"   
  
"I'm a warrior too!" Jade protested. "Just like you! I-"   
  
She cut off, looking hurt and angry as Drizzt's intent gaze abruptly left her, passed over Branwen quickly, Montaron, Xzar, and Kagain even more so, but then rested on Edwina, specifically her amulet pendant. "Why..." he flashed the identical grin he had Jade, "…but here a comely nbole maiden in her elegant gilded dress do we have!" He reached out, snatching up Edwina's hand before she could withdrew it, and planted the requisite kiss. "So far from deserved comforts you have come, the reasons must be dire indeed. But fear not, Drizzt Do'Urden never leaves a princess in peril, and your entourage shall now be graced by his presence…and his blades."   
  
"Y-" Edwina cut off her snarl as Montaron gave him an intricate wink and hand signal from behind the ranger. She smiled, giggled vacuously, and raised her other hand to her beardless, round and feminine face to hide a blush that did not grace it. "Why, I'm honored, noble sir Do'Urden, I…I believe I shall faint. (Actually, I believe I shall vomit. This is one stepping stone to eventual but inevitable Zulkership that I shall expunge from my boundless memory.)"   
  
Drizzt slid around to catch her. "Perhaps a rest is in order, my lady. Let us tend to your needs, and perhaps become better acquainted before the long journey need resume."   
  
"Why thank you…" Edwina sighed. "My hero. (They owe me. Immensely. And in blood.)"   
  
Jade was somewhere been jaded, stunned, and livid. A childhood hero…sure, he leveled a dozen gnolls in an eyeblink, but that done he had transformed into an egotistical charlatan who spoke in the third person and stared into the cleavage of polymorphed men, treating a conjuress of some skill like a hapless damsel in distress. _Where the heck is the distress? _She glanced to Montaron, and gave a subtle nod.   
  
Edwina sighed. "Dear Drizzt, I feel cool water would do me well."   
  
"But ask, milady, and an epic hero is at your beck and call," the ranger proclaimed with a practiced drama, made a show of hoisting her up in his arms, and marching to the lakeshore, with no more notice of the rest of the party than he'd made since first doting on Edwina.   
  
The other five waited, silently and patiently, until the drow fellow had carried her out of view around a copse of trees near the water. Then, she nodded, and Montaron scurried off to the back of the copse, magical boots of stealth rendering his footfalls utterly soundless.   
  
He waited a few moments, listening patiently while arming his crossbow, and then crept forward, right under branches and bushes. He was silent and quite unnoticeable, save for one moment when he nearly retched at the sight of Drizzt sashaying his hips and slowly, rhythmically sliding that shimmering shirt of azure mail over his head to reveal a chest that had the muscular but feminine build of many male elf warriors. Montaron shook his head, regretting that he had to keep his eyes open. He couldn't see Edwina over a rise in the ground, but he could hear her vacuous giggles as the drow male performing his striptease.   
  
Resting his crossbow on the ground, Montaron grasped the handle, sliding a short finger over the trigger, and looked over the bolt. He could feel his Zal's bracers now doing their work, guiding and steadying his arms.   
  
_Wait'll Alora sees ol' Montry now _, he thought, _It be she doin' the striptease then. _He squeezed the trigger. The bow twanged while the bolt slid off the shaft and whistled through the clean air.   
  
While gyrating his hips rapidly, Drizzt arched backward at once, blood spraying out of his throat until his hands flew up to grasp it. He fell back over himself. "No!" he gurgled to the sky while Montaron dashed out of hiding, "You are naught but pipsqueak adventurers! I am Drizzt Do'Urden and I am an epic hero who cannot be so easily-"   
  
"…killed?" Montaron finished, firing a bolt almost point-blank into Drizzt's forehead. The ranger fell from all-fours to complete collapse, mercifully silent and still. "A bolt can kill anyone, earth-pansy."   
  
The party came around the copse, with varying but extreme emotions at the sight.   
  
Jade was in awe. "I…killed…Drizzt Do'Urden…"   
  
Xzar clapped his hands excitedly. "Drizzt-Deadened! Oh, wonderful work Monty! The Lollipop Lord is truly smiling now!"   
  
Montaron grinned. "We be getting' a promotion, that be for sure."   
  
Kagain's eyes glistened, reflecting the shiny armor. "Mithril…"   
  
Branwen held back, folding her arms, and looking darkly at the carnage. "These actions are not of warrior born."   
  
Jade looked pleadingly at her friend. "You know I hate this stuff too, but…you saw what he was."   
  
"Merely a braggart and cad! That hardly makes it right!"   
  
Jade slumped onto the ground by Branwen while the rest of the party descended like vultures on Drizzt's belongings. "I know, I just..." she put her hands in her face. "It's like this, Branwen. Like with the First whose platemail you wear, with the witch-hunter at the carnival where I found you, or the double-crosser at the dig site. And there...there was an incident back in Candlekeep, when I was younger. It wasn't my fault, okay?"   
  
"When I get mad at people, I can kill them. I don't mind, it's even right, it all makes sense then…and after, really. There's usually a good reason, like they wanted to kill me or someone else, or arrest me for nothing, or they were bad people. Where my father might say I should talk to them and my brother might do that, but I just think it's safer and faster to kill them, and it's their fault. It usually comes to that anyway. You heard his stories and Immy's."   
  
"As offensive as his manner was, this one would seem to be a new liberty to your standards."   
  
"I know…" Jade convulsed once, and then pounded the ground with her fists. "Look, you don't understand! I _worshipped _him once! I know it sounds stupid, but I think a lot of girls like me did. He's really famous in places that are actually civilized! You wouldn't understand. And now he's… he's destroyed it all, it was all a lie. It's just like all the stuff they tried to cram down my throat in Candlekeep!" she flung her hands out, northward. "Do this, do that, don't do that, be a good girl, nice manners now, ENOUGH!"   
  
She flew up on her feet, grabbing a rock and throwing it clear across the pond. Then she collapsed, and convulsed, hiding her face in her hands while Branwen rose behind her, and rested firm hands on her shoulders.   
  
"I'm not my father," Jade sobbed, "And I'm not my brother. I'm me."   
  
"Ooo-hoo-hoo…" Xzar was rubbing his fingers over Drizzt's body, and then drew out the Revenant's dagger. "We were getting low on spell components, weren't we? A wise choice, mmmm…" he began to cut.   
  
Kagain needed no divination magic to know the weapons and armor of Drizzt's Do'Urden. "Well, well, well," he chuckled, "A might fine shot, Monty ol' pal, and his weapons and armor here'd put us up like kings for good, though I suspect our adventurin' days aren't over yet just for sure."   
  
Montarony licked his lips, no less familiar with mind-numbing tales. "Yes, let's see. Icingdeath," he pointed for the benefit of the foreigner, Edwina, "A thrice-enchanted Frostbrand scimitar. And Twinkle, _yeech _, who names their weapon 'Twinkle'. I be thinkin' he had such a pet name fer somethin' else. Anyway, it be a _fively-enchanted _blade!"   
  
Edwina's eyes widened.   
  
"Yep!" Montaron grinned. "A 'Defender', likely to defend Drizzt's other precious Twinkle. Unfortunately," he pointed at the handle and made a hexing gesture, "It be one o' those…morally narrow type pieces."   
  
"It's lousy," Kagain snorted. "Our craftsmen shouldn't be our clergymen."   
  
Edwina sneered. "Disgusting. Downright Rashemani."   
  
Jade approached them, and looked down for the suit of mithril chainmail, her emerald eyes glistening with the reflection of the sun onto the shiny metal onto her tears. "Wow…this…is amazing. And _perfect _." She unfastened her existent suit of enchanted steel chainmail, and after a minute had uncaged her sweaty tunic and shorts. "I've never fancied heavier armors than chain, and this... _this _is _Drizzt Do'Urden's mithril chain _..."   
  
The rest of the party watched, murmuring in only heightening approval, as she donned the bluish mail, then reached for Icingdeath, and slashed through the air, leaving a frosty arc like of breath on a winter's day. She held the blade out before herself to admire it, and smiled. "I'd always dreamt of specially learning curved blades. But in classical Candlekeep, such learning was not to be found." She dashed and hacked through the air, strides light and strikes fluid in her shimmering light armor.   
  
"KAAIIIII!" The tree-trunk before her became Drizzt Do'Urden, and one slash with the scimitar took off his head.   
  
The party startled, but then only gasped in awe when it became clear the tree was falling safely away from them.


	40. Sins of the Flesh

**40. Sins of the Flesh **  
  
The sour expression upon the divine features of the sirine was odd. Onyx was overcome with pity for the pure creature, surely whatever wrong had displeased her must be righted.   
  
"This is not your place!" she wailed through the rain. "This is the home of Sil's tribe. Dirty land folk, you shall suffer for your trespass."   
  
The party was already moving. For Onyx, this meant turning around, and slugging Khalid with a dull echo of metal against jawbone. They had been too tightly packed for battle, the half-elven warrior had been delayed drawing his weapon or raising his shield, and now he was sent right back into the third row of the party. Imoen was almost bowled over but hopped out of the way, her eyes staring with anguish at her friend's betrayal. Garrick beside her instead pushed forward, propping Khalid up with his momentum. The charmed paladin lunged now out at Viconia, who had been quick to move away at Safana's warning and begin a spell, but the paladin followed and shoved her with all his weight, and she fell back on the sand.   
  
Dynaheir was also starting a spell, but then the bodyguard who had moved in front of her turned around and shoved her and she fell too. "Minsc will help the poor little sirine just like our dryad friend! Injustice must be righted! RAAARRGH!" He spun around again, frothing, and grabbed Imoen and Garrick by the hair as they trained shortbow and crossbow on the sirines ahead. They shrieked helplessly as he clunked their skulls together, and then let them drop and lunged forward at Khalid, who was using his shield to fend off Onyx's continued unarmed attacks. He grabbed the half-elf by the shoulders and slung him to the ground.   
  
Only Jaheira and Safana had been spared this madness, having rushed forward past to combat the sirines, stopping the charms at the source. The sea fey were retreating, up the bank, and grabbing for shortbows and small quivers there. Safana gained upon and drove her bowie knives into the breasts of one, twisting and pushing in between ribs, then dragging the serrated blades out and kicking off the butchered water nymph. Jaheira had half-crushed the skull of a second with her quarterstaff, but Sil and the last then loosed arrows. One grazed along Jaheira's neck, the other stuck shallowly in Safana's stomach. The women charged, heedless of the minor wounds, but Safana balked with the first sting of some poison. The sirines retreated further up the bank and wove spells. Jaheira and Safana recognized the pull of the charm magics upon their wills, and battle-cried away to Silvanus or Sharess. They reached their targets, and Safana fell upon a sirine with a flamboyant flash of bowie knives, knocking the bow from the sirine's hands and then making two shallow slashes across the flawless skin. The sirine couldn't back up faster than Safana could stride in, and the disarming knife raced for and into her stomach, up the hilt, then twisted, and Safana yanked it up, spilling out intestine.   
  
Sil gracefully wove under and around the first few long swings of the quarterstaff, firing an arrow that didn't pierce her attacker's splintmail. Jaheira moved from a same-ended grip to a first-and-third quarters, and jabbed with both ends. She knocked Sil's left hand and crunched it, disarming her, then brought the other end of her staff forward, but Sil ducked it and darted behind the druid, only to find herself face-to-face with Safana, who slashed open her throat with a snarl, and gutted her.   
  
"Stay away from my charge," Jaheira nodded begrudgingly to the knife-wielding pirate, "And I just might tolerate you for a while more."   
  
Safana, heaving from exertion and the toxin, had no riposte other than a universal hand gesture, then she knelt and vomited, onto Sil in repayment for her.   
  
"Ohh…how sensual," Jaheira mock-moaned, then her eyes flicked back down the beach.   
  
Minsc stood wrapped in vines up to his waist, howling, swinging the half-ogre's greatsword around in every direction, limited to a circle that was quite devoid of his companions, who had made themselves rather scarce.   
  
Imoen, though, was playing keep-away, a horrified look upon her face, in outright tears, Onyx was chasing her and making merciless swings with Varscona, and she would dart around a tree or bush each time, crying, "Stop, Onyx! It's me! It's Imoen! Stop you idiot stop…"   
  
Minsc's entangler, Viconia, was hiding at some distance, and weaving a spell. She completed it with a clap and a shout, and the paladin froze midswing, leaving Imoen's neck between a treetrunk and the blade. The girl panted, slumped down, and scurried off, body convulsing. She crawled under the thicket where Viconia hid, clutched the drow, who actually held her back, stroking her dark hair and whispering foreign but soothing words.   
  
"Sweet Silvanus," Jaheira gasped, visibly weak, and not from any poison.   
  
"Charming magic," Safana said neutrally, wiping off and slipping her bowie knives onto her hips. "It is often anything but."   
  
Jaheira spotted Garrick and Khalid peeping around trees, both shivering in fright. They looked about for Dynaheir, and heard her behind themselves, and turned to see the witch striding, and flaking shrub-leaves from her dress.   
  
"You're hurt," she announced, looking to Safana.   
  
"I'll be-" the woman insisted before retching again. The witch put her dark hands on the woman's shoulders, and then reached into her robs, and produced and almost force-fed her a fragrant dried herb.   
  
"Thank you…" Safana gasped, feeling her blood cleanse over the next moments.   
  
Jaheira, in turn, healed the back of Dynaheir's head, bleeding from its impact with the rocks. They retreated and crouched behind brush, hoping the charms would end their time before Viconia's magical restraints.   
  
Minsc calmed down after a few minutes, blinked, and looked about. "What! What…what have we done, Boo?" the ranger let his great sword fall to the pebbles, and put his hands over his face, sobbing like a small boy. "Woe are we. Minsc has attacked his very own witch, whom he was sworn to protect and is a very good friend besides. It is not a happy day…what, Boo? Ahhh....you are right as always, my faithful companion from space. Heroes must not sulk, but steel their minds against the magics of naughty sylvan creatures henceforth."   
  
Viconia was leading Imoen out from under the brush; Onyx's charm had surely ended to. The paladin's sword fell into the grass, and he stared at his own hands, and then sank to his knees, pale and aghast. "By all that's…no…" he took off his helm, slumped forward, forehead against the treetrunk, and wept, until he felt a light hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Safana. He tried to blink away evidence of his tears, and rose.   
  
"You were Charmed," she explained, orienting her own breath away from him to hide evidence of her embarrassment. She looked at him and added, "It happens," more playfully.   
  
"I could have killed her," he winced, "She's…she's my closest friend, since…since we were kids."   
  
"Oh?"   
  
"Yes…and I…am" he closed his eyes, and exhaled with great relief. Lathander hadn't deserted him.   
  
"Strong," Safana smiled. "Your will shall strengthen."   
  
Onyx hesitated. "Thank you…I hope so."   
  
"No..." she winked, "…you _know _so. That's why I call it will."   
  
A loud cough interrupted them, and then spun to face Jaheira. She raised a hand to forestall her charge's gushing apology. Safana rolled her eyes, and moved off to loot the sirines.   
  
Viconia had coaxed Imoen from their hiding place, Khalid and Garrick had crept from theirs. Dynaheir consoled her bodyguard, patting his bulging arm and whispering maternally in their native tongue. Onyx mumbled an uneasy apology to the group while Jaheira tended to her husband, and his first act with his un-busted lips was to kiss her.   
  
When Safana returned to join them, and Viconia healed her of her arrow wound, the party now all turned up the beach, and found the cave.   
  
"X marks the spot," Safana grinned.   
  
Jaheira looked cross. "If you didn't know about the sirines, what else don't you know?"   
  
"Oh please," Safana sneered, "You might as well blame me for us happening upon any band of kobolds on this peninsula."   
  
"Flesh golems, you said?" Dynaheir spoke up matter-of-factly. "Poison is effective, they are creatures of flesh and blood and nothing but."   
  
"Why…" Safana slung the gathered quiver of sirines' arrows from her shoulder, "…how convenient. Perhaps 'Sil' was worth our while after all." She held the quiver out to the warriors. "Come and get it, boys."   
  
Onyx, Minsc, and Khalid looked at one other, shrugged, and each took six arrows.   
  
"Can we outrun them?" Onyx asked Dynaheir.   
  
"You could, yes," the witch nodded.   
  
"We'll run in," he nodded left and right to ranger and Harper, "Play hit and, well, run."   
  
Safana cocked her head at him, and grinned broadly. "Daring and brilliant."   
  
Viconia snickered. "Flattering and vacuous."   
  
Safana clamped her mouth shut, and scolded herself.   
  
"A fine plan," Jaheira nodded, and looked at her husband. "That's hit and _run _, dear."   
  
Viconia snickered again. "It's unnecessary to tell Khalid that. If I know this, surely you should by now."   
  
Jaheira ignored the drow, as hugged her smiling husband. "B-b-back in a bit," he grined, pecked her on the cheek.   
  
He, his charge, and their new friend from the east marched through the mouth of the cave, bows drawn with these new arrows, and soon moved to single file. Soon the passage split. Onyx gestured left for himself, right for the other two, thinking Minsc could shoot right over Khalid's head. They moved apart.   
  
Neira's helm illuminated the passage with his own bodyheat, and Onyx stared carefully into the dark, moving forward, into a larger chamber. Then he heard the footsteps, and felt them. He recognized one of Thalantyr's sentries at once, lumbering along as if on patrol. Then its 'head' craned his way, and it gave a formless roar, and made for him, raising the arms that were nothing but muscle. Lots of muscle.   
  
Onyx loosed an arrow into its chest, then drew and shot another, then backtracked a few steps and shot a third, then a fourth. They embedded around its expansive chest, the meat growing green in outward expanding circles. Onyx ran back further; now able to hear the others clambering back down the passage, and stopped to fire his last two arrows. Then, he fully turned and ran, meeting Minsc and Khalid right at the juncture, and able to hear another set of heavy footsteps up their passageway. Together they bolted back to the cave entrance. But then one set of footsteps ended with a single, heavy crash, followed soon by another.   
  
"Minsc's witch is very smart!"   
  
"There m-might be m-m-m-m-more."   
  
Minsc and Khalid had each spent three arrows felling their construct, they each gave one to Onyx. They made their way up the cavern again, but right at the juncture a third golem was moving over the bodies of its fellows, moving for the warriors for a mindless vengeance. One wave of three arrows landed its chest, then it moved an arm across its body, taking two of the next follow, the third landing in its shapeless crotch. The three turned and bolted until they stood in daylight. Khalid nodded when he made out the victorious crash.   
  
The warriors looked at each others' empty quivers, hoping that was the last. They ran back in, and all took the left branch this time. The cave circled into a second large chamber, with a pool and a small 'island' that held a great, piraty-looking chest, and then they took a distinctively manmade bridge over a chasm, and found themselves curving around and in a large chamber Khalid and Minsc had found, which connected right back to the original juncture.   
  
"Three, and no more," Onyx announced to the rest once they returned to daylight. Safana smiled specifically at him, but spared any flattery in sultry tones. The rest murmured approval, and the paladin and ranger took some comfort, warmed by having protected their companions in this battle, after their horrid acts in the last.   
  
The nine moved within the cave, to the chamber with the chest.   
  
Safana studied it for a moment. "I don't think it's trapped.   
  
Imoen's eyes widened. "Ooh! Cool, I was wonderin that too.. How'd ya know?"   
  
"I, eh…just don't see anything that looks like a trap."   
  
"But, um, what looks like a trap?"   
  
"Mmm..." she smiled in thought, and passed glances around the party, "It's a long and complex list, and the tide is rising. Perhaps when we have time…tonight around the campfire."   
  
"Yay!!"   
  
Jaheira glared at Safana, then looked accusingly at her husband and charge when they voiced nor projected no objection. Viconia and Dynaheir didn't look happy, but neither said anything. While Safana stepped over the water onto the small island, Jaheira opened her mouth.   
  
"I'm-gonna-learn-bout-booby-traps, I'm-gonna-learn-bout-booby-traps," Imoen sang, and danced circles around Garrick.   
  
Jaheira sighed, and closed her mouth. Safana appraised the mildewy, waterlogged chest, which bore a grinning pirate skull on the rusted lock. Safana merely busted it apart with the hilt of a bowie knife, and then threw back the lid.   
  
There wasn't quite the flash of shining gold from within, but the pirate-lady set to work digging, murmuring unhappily. Onyx stepped across the island, and looked over her shoulder. Dynaheir stepped up, looked in too, and cast a divination cantrip, and pointed out the magical items to Safana. She slung off her rucksack, and took a wand, a cloak, a tome, a sleeve of darts, and a pouch of potions.   
  
Safana swore, and sighed. "We're not exactly retiring." She slammed the lid with a sigh, then glanced over to grin at Onyx. "I suppose we'll just have to keep working, and we have worked well together, wouldn't you agree?" Her hip nudged his. "Perhaps we could continue this working relationship beyond just one treasure hunt, that is, if you'll have me. If you haven't guessed yet, my skills are of a thieving nature."   
  
"Perhaps," Dynaheir cut in from over her shoulder, "That is what might worry us." She stared pointedly over the thief's head at Onyx. "Paladins are not known for keeping such company lightly, and neither are Wychalarn."   
  
Onyx looked appraisingly at Safana, and not in the way she might have preferred. "We have our standards," he offered.   
  
Safana curtsied. "My my, such noble company. A girl can only be honored. Don't you worry, I'm nobility myself."   
  
"We're more about the 'deed' kind, here," Onyx stated neutrally, "Birth, not so much."   
  
She looked back at the paladin, and winked. "I'll be on my best behavior, I promise."   
  
"That's good to hear."   
  
She raised her eyebrows, looking somewhat indignantly at the harsh faces of the paladin and the witch. She turned around, and leaned back against the chest, facing the group across the underground stream. "We'll have to get back into town to divvy and appraise our findings. Shall we be off, then?"   
  
Jaheira frowned. The lady had a convenient, but good point. "The sooner the better."   
  
Once outside, they appraised the modest treasure.. The cloak had.the odd power of being able to turn its wearer into a wolf. After magically identifying it, Garrick tossed it over Imoen's shoulders to shield her from the continuing rain if nothing else, and they were on their way, winding north along the coast.   
  
Imoen huddled closer under the cloak as Candlekeep came into view.


	41. The Lone Ranger

**41. The Lone Ranger **  
  
When his possessed kinsman had assaulted the High Hedge, bird and beast, vermin and insect, had all scurried away, obeying the same instincts that bid them flee from earthquake and storm, for this is what they had felt, for this was precisely the essence of the thing from which they fled.   
  
"Destruction," this elf whispered, to himself, as he had been for many a day, "It is in the air of late, and the winds shall not soon change."   
  
"And never shall they change for me," he spoke to himself again, "Until my beloved is avenged. _Tenna amin liyalai naa riyan! Tenna lye aelo au, aul Arvundor… _"   
  
_Until my beloved is avenged. Until we meet again, in Arvundor. _  
  
_"Liy naa oira. Herian naa eria." _  
  
_Love is eternal. Justice is inevitable. _  
  
-----------   
  
Despite Xzar's protests, Drizzt's body was not reanimated for use as a magic-resistant pack-mule, simply tied with stones and sunk to the bottom of the lake. Jade lightly could and did wear her gray tunic and pants over his shining azure mithril, and only her lightest cottons beneath, not wishing the famous armor to catch the attention of the lawless or the law. As for her new scimitar Icingdeath, she wouldn't be showing it off to anyone she intended to live to tell.   
  
Two hours north, they overtook a cloaked figure that appeared to be studying the ground; in particular sets of huge footprints. Before he was in focus of any of the party, his head had cocked toward them, and he studied intently. As they drew closer, Jade made out that a composite longbow hung over the back of his camouflage cloak. Long ears speared up over the sides of his hood, his chin and forehead were oddly tattooed with gray-blue paths; his features were sharp and strong, Jade would have thought them handsome were the face not so grim.   
  
The elf called out. "Hail, travelers? What takes you this far from civilization?"   
  
Her companions muttered various sarcastic answers or non-answers under their breaths. Branwen gave Jade a knowing look; the girl nodded and the woman spoke. "We are adventurers, ready to smite any evil that darkens our path."   
  
Edwina snorted, "hmmp!", and Montaron and Kagain snickered in open disdain.   
  
"A strange coincidence…" the elf mused, in a voice that was gravely and weatherworn. "I have a quest similar to your own. I have been hunting the bandits in the region for the past few months."   
  
Jade studied him. "Why have you spent months hunting them?"   
  
The elf grimaced, eyes flicking about at things that were not there, and inhaled. "Their leader, an ogre named…Tazok, took the life of someone very dear to me."   
  
The party sucked in their breaths. "I'm sorry," Jade spoke. Then she smiled grimly. "We are hunting him too."   
  
"Are you?" the elf's voice held the hope of one who dares not.   
  
"We have learned that he is party to this iron crisis, a boss of the saboteurs in Nashkel."   
  
The elf shook his head. "This crisis is well known to me, to all within a hundred miles, and to every ranger within a thousand. To have engineered it, is beyond him. Evil is he greatly, a chief somewhat, but such a schemer, no."   
  
"We believe he works for the Iron Throne," Jade disclosed plainly. "A consortium from Sembia, and now in Baldur's Gate. We wish to delve into this scheme, and some of us have reasons as personal as your own."   
  
Branwen nodded. "One among their number, Tranzig, a foul mage and fouler bandit, rendered my flesh stone; by these warriors I was freed."   
  
Jade continued, "There is a bounty upon my head, and though I do not know why, I am sure they are behind it. One of them slew my father."   
  
"And another, my lover," the elf looked away. He looked back, studying Edwina's bright red robes for a moment with a faint and disapproval glimmer of recognition. He then glanced at Kagain the dwarf, and his face remained grim; when it set upon Montaron and Xzar it grew more warily curious. "I shall find Tazok. I shall say to him – 'Hello. My name is Kivan of Shilmista. You killed my beloved. Prepare to die.'"   
  
Xzar peered at his tattooed fellow. "Fascinating. This Tazok…did he by any chance of six fingers on his left hand?"   
  
The elf gasped. "How did you know?"   
  
"Oh," Xzar giggled slyly, "It's just one of those things."   
  
The elf frowned quizzically, and dismissed it. "Perhaps if we worked together, we might avenge them all. What say you to that?" His eyes now grew less dark, and fixed on Jade.   
  
She smiled, and swung her head forward, letting her scarlet bangs fling northward. "Jade of Candlekeep."   
  
"Branwen of Seawolf, Battleguard of Tempus."   
  
"Kagain. Where I'm from ain't no elf's leaf-lovin' care."   
  
"Monty Sackins o' Gullykin, at yer service, or better yet ye at mine."   
  
"Edwina Odesseiron, of the house Odesseiron, Red Wizard of Thay, conjuress of unsurpassed brilliance, beauty, breeding, and taste."   
  
"Xzar, the happy necromancer from the Marshmallow Kingdom, where the rockinghorse knight constructs of pure chaos battle the jello-worms from the ninth planet of Hyborea!"   
  
"He's from Candlekeep, like me," Jade smiled lopsidedly. She examined the tracks.   
  
"Half-ogres," Kivan explained. "I have tracked them and shall soon be upon them."   
  
Montaron murmured, "A paladin in Beregost was offerin' a reward. A magical shield."   
  
Jade smiled when the ranger pointed northeast. "We make that way too, for Beregost, where we believe Tranzig to be. Let these monsters fall before our arrows, and then I believe we all shall have reasons for continuing into town."   
  
Kivan only said, "Follow me."   
  
He led them for the next half-hour through field and fern, his strides long and light, and purposeful even when the tracks were not readily seen. They rounded another lake, and Kivan's ears perked, and he signaled.   
  
Ahead, Jade could easily see and hear the brutes; they were making a campfire as the sun now sank in the sky, nearby one skinned hanging meat, Jade tried not to study its shape or discern its origin. When Kivan slung his longbow off his back, Jade did the same. Branwen armed her sling, and Montaron his crossbow. They marched a ways about the lake, and the half-ogres still took no notice as they came to less than two hundred feet away. Kivan notched and aimed an arrow, even though none of the others believed themselves in range. He let it fly, and all watched as it sailed through the air, and embedded itself in the back of the skull of the half-ogre who sat facing away. He started, and fell backwards, firewood falling from his warty greenish arms. Jade herself loosed an arrow too, but it fell short, into the lake.   
  
The other ogres hollered and stomped, and reached for large and crude blades, and stormed around the curving bank of the lake. Kivan felled another just as he picked up his weapon, and Jade was still out of range, but they stormed on, and she made a shot just as Kivan shot his third arrow. Jade smiled with grim pride as his ricocheted off the helm this beast wore, but hers plunged through its breast. Yet still it charged, but Montaron now clicked off a bolt into its belly. Kivan's next arrow sank into its heart and felled it. The fourth and fifth monsters charged on, but neither made it. Kivan's fourth arrow pierced the throat of one; the other groaned as a crossbow bolt, an arrow sang into its body; when Branwen's bullet smacked its forehead it stumbled back and blinked, then Kivan's fifth arrow lodged deep in its left eye and it fell backwards.   
  
"You're quite an archer," Jade smiled at Kivan, even more impressed than she let herself convey. "We might just keep you."   
  
"Thank you, for your kind words," the elf stated without humor. Jade turned away, and shared a frustrated look with Branwen over the dreary demeanor.   
  
"All ya elves this melancholy?" Kagain snorted, "Ya shoulda met Xan, as dull as they make 'em, lilly-livered Greycloak in this violet dress, couldn't have lifted his own sword if'n it weren't one of those airy-fairy swords of yours…"   
  
Kivan was not heeding the dwarf's intent, rather his face creased at once. He spoke, "I have seen him."   
  
"O' course," Kagain rambled on, "'Yer all inbreds…"   
  
"Wait!" Jade glared at Kagain, then asked Kivan, "When?"   
  
"An elf of this description," Kivan answered, "With violet wizard's robes, and a moonblade. Just last light…he was mad, running through the fields. I saw him set upon an entire party of gnolls. He slew them, and then feasted upon the remains. Then he ripped asunder the doors of the High Hedge. I heard the sounds of magic and battle from within, but no know more."   
  
The party chilled as they listened. "That's our Xan," Jade grimaced, "He was…possessed. By, as near we can tell a Netherese god of earthquake, storms, and destruction, Kozah."   
  
Kivan nodded, "I had suspected something of the sort, for the behavior was truly alien to elvenkind."   
  
Kagain groaned. "Ya mean the ability. Wicked elves aren't as rare as ye'd like ta belief." He looked across Xzar, Edwina, and Jade. "Ya best learn that now, kids, if ya want to adventure yer gonna learn it one way or another."   
  
Elf and dwarf stared at one another coldly while Xzar happily and singularly volunteered for the task of scalping the half-ogres, though Montaron was eager to loot their bodies and campsite – making sure he scoured each before his colleague did the more grisly work. The party then moved on; but only to the end of the lake far past the half-ogres' campsite, for now they would make their own as the sun set.   
  
Xzar was 'relieved' of mess duty, ostensibly for hard work scalping, but truly because none wished for half-ogre eyeball soup. Edwin expended an unused Burning Hands spell to get a fire started with Montaron's stolen firewood, and the halfling saw to cooking venison – having also quietly relieved the conjuress of some of her stash of exotic homeland spices. He would find out by dinnertime of course, but be able to do little except hurl insults and threats and spend the rest of the campfire light sulking in her spellbook.   
  
Among her existent party, Jade was last into her tent, but gave Kivan a last glance, where he sat near the bygone fire upon a log, and listened to and watched the night.   
  
"I need no sleep," he told her in a low voice, when he noticed, "Reverie but no rest, until my vengeance."   
  
Branwen mumbled a hearty, if sleepy, concurrence from within the tent, and before she too vanished behind the flap, Jade nodded along, and smiled at Kivan. "Nor me 'til mine."   
  
It was with this in her mind, that she fell into sleep and dreams.


	42. Astral Wonderland

**42. Astral Wonderland **  
  
Onyx closed the back cover of _How to Win Friends and Influence People _, the colossal magical tome found in the caverns beneath the gnoll stronghold. He shut his eyes, feeling the knowledge seep in, at a conscious and even an innate level.   
  
"It's funny," he muttered to Minsc before opening eyes to look at the ranger, the only other one still awake in the camp, "So much tact, so much skill and effort goes in to diplomacy and charisma, and yet a sea sprite took persuasion of us so much more direly, with but a single sung spell."   
  
The Rashemani shifted his large weight on their log ringed by tents, "True words, my paladin friend. Heroes must be ever vigilant against sorcerous wiles! It is most unfortunate that all evil wizardry comes not in the form of flying orbs and fireballs that are so very easy for Minsc to see. But the very wise champions of the Ice Dragon lodge know that through trial and adventure and experience, young warriors learn to steel themselves against such naughty enchantments."   
  
Onyx rubbed his temples. "I hope so, my great friend. They come in many forms."   
  
--   
  
Jade found herself constrained within the tunnels of the Nashkel mines once more. She felt no claustrophobia, only annoyance, pushing against them and stepping over the dead little marauders. She tred deeper and deeper, snorting at each kobold body, pausing occasionally to wipe her boots against the rock or swipe a missed coin.   
  
She came to a chamber littered with minecarts and heard a sound from below. A column of light descended, and within it and before her stood Mulahey, in no better shape that she had left him, bloodied, now rotting, half his face frozen and shattered, the lazy eye frosted over. Held from whatever afterlife called it, it stood waiting as a dagger of bone hovered before it, its broken jaw moving in breathless curses, its remaining eye without hope. Rightfully so, Jade thought. She reached out to grasp, but then hesitated and instead brushed away the quaint blade. A stranger's weapon would not suffice now; she had to know this phantom would remain among the dead, and reached out to throttle it with her own hands. The doomed half-orc almost looked relieved, and its visage faded as Jade's hands clasped in a strangle, leaving only a faint mirage of a skull wreathed in purple flame.   
  
Jade shrugged, puzzled but little concerned, and turned to leave, feeling somehow done. The mine was hers once again. Over her shoulder she saw her exit blocked, and as she looked back again saw the dagger had become five, a set of hovering skeletal claws. It lashed out and pressed against her chest, and a hollow voice pierced the chill of the main air.   
  
"You should use the tools you are given..." The hand traced a line of ichor on her gray tunic, increasing the pressure like a spear against her sternum. "Listen to what is bred in the bone." The claw pushed straight between her breasts for her heart.   
  
Jade's eyes popped open to find herself removed from the dream. She was intact, mystified, but not afraid. Her heart was not her weak spot.   
  
--   
  
Onyx was started out of sleep with a chill, warm and calm as the night was. He felt as though someone had walked across his grave, and wondered if it were himself. The ground about him opened, and the darkness grew up about him like tall trees. Light returned and he found himself in the stonehenge ruins cleansed of undead by his passage, and then their bloated master, now from the afterlife himself and bearing the rendings of flesh and skull that had taken him there. A dagger of bone hovered above the ground before it, handle pointed toward Onyx, asking him to grab and drive it deep into the Cyricist's black heart.   
  
Onyx turned away; punishment enough awaited this addled soul in Pandemonium, he need not inflict any more. Surprised and thankful, Bassilus hobbled forward, giggling madly, and passed through Onyx off to whatever fate it deserved. Perhaps for safekeeping, Onyx was struck with the thought, it left a part of itself behind. A spark of hope that filled a space in Onyx's heeart just as Bassilus's own wayward soul passed through his, a dagger-shaped hole he hadn't known was empty.   
  
He started at a cry of rage all about the glade. The dagger of bone hurled itself through the air toward his heart. Onyx left the dream just as it should have struck, finding himself in a cold sweat that leaked into and stung his eyes. A disapproving voice that should have disappeared in the dream lingered in his ears.   
  
"You...will...learn!"   
  
--   
  
Jade was now in a woodland, wandering, not sure what she needed to find or where she needed to go, wearing a blue and white sundress, her scarlet hair kept back by a neat headband. She looked about, and recognized where she was - on the road east out of Candlekeep. She walked on, and soon came to the junction with the Coast Way, and there stood a long banquest table, at least a dozen seats to a side, all covered in a checkered tablecloth and cakes and teapots covering it in turn. Pipe-music filled the air, and waving their teacupts in time from the table where Montaron and Xzar, or so it seemed. Montaron's face was twisted like a hare's, with the nose a button, and whiskers springing out from puffy cheeks. His pointy halfling ears now stretched high above his head and were furry and rounded. Xzar wore a three-piece suit instead of his robes, if colored the same, and a tall top-hat that smelt of mercury, with the pricetag still tucked into the brim.   
  
The Xzar-Hatter's first words to her were, "Your hair wants cutting."   
  
Jade's hands went to her head, and she found her scarlet hair was now long, as she had not let it grow since she'd let Xzar shatter the ends off with a Chill Touch spell when they were just twelve.   
  
Jade sat hesitantly at the table.   
  
"Would you like some more tea?" Xzar grinned, holding up one of the teapots and tipping it toward the cup nearest her.   
  
Jade frowned. "How can I have more when I haven't had any?"   
  
"Oh," Xzar cooed, "Easily, you've had none and you can always have more than nothing. What you couldn't have is any less."   
  
"How about just half a cup then?" the Monty-Hare suggested, and jerked a shortsword over the edge of the table, and hacked it down, cutting a full cup of tea in half. He lifted the half with the handle, the tea staying perfectly with its hemisphere as if cut solid by the cup, and offered it. When Jade hesitated, the hare halfling shrugged and drank the tea out of the half-cup himself.   
  
Another large teapot opened, and a tiny demonlike creature popped out its head and sang, "Twinkle twinkle little fiend, how I wonder what you mean."   
  
"What nonsense!" Jade protested.   
  
"Naturally," Xzar grinned, "If it made too much sense it would go without saying."   
  
"Wait," Jade looked at the little fiend in the teapot, "I recognize that grotesque little monster..."   
  
"Be'el Z. Bub, Quasit Extraordinaire," the creature from her last dream with Xzar popped fully out of the teapot, and hovered in the air flapping its bat-wings, and resumed singing, "Through the pits of hell you fly, like a comet in the sky."   
  
"Pray tell," Jade looked about the table, "What is this little tea-party for?"   
  
"Why," Xzar grinned proudly as the quasit perhced on his shoulder, "We're celebrating the fact that we're not in nightmares, or having them!"   
  
"But that's such a funny thing to celebrate," Jade protested, "It's not so much of an occasion."   
  
"Aye, but it is," Montaron poured himself another half-cup of tea, his long ears twitching, "Why, just look at all our tea and cakes! It is quite the occasion indeed!"   
  
"You seem to be making an occasion of it," Jade continued, "I mean that it's not as if you are usually having nightmares."   
  
"Exactly!" Xzar clapped his hands, which were filled with cake, causing the white icing and bread to splatter across himself. "Why would we want to hold a tea-party for something that did not happen very often? Then we'd have little chance to celebrate!"   
  
"I suppose if it's the tea-party you want to celebrate..." Jade frowned in thought.   
  
"Oh, but it isn't," Xzar shook his head, and the icing that had landed in them now flew about and splattered Be'el, Montaron, and Jade's dress. Clinking their cups together, the altered Zhents in approximate unison and harmony sang,   
  
"Statistics prove that you've a dream,   
Many times a night.   
Some of those are nightmares,   
So we're gathered not in fright."   
  
"Oh Jadey, Jadey, we dissuade ye,   
Our nonsense misunderstand!   
Monty and X aren't here to hex,   
This astral wonderland."   
  
"Mommy this night you may have had,   
Mirage macabre and strange,   
We your friends help want to lend,   
And saving grace arrange."   
  
"A very merry unnightmatre to you, to you.   
A very merry unnightmare to you,   
We toast our drinking to keep your mind's a-thinking done by you.   
A very merry unnightmare to you!""   
  
--   
  
Onyx found himself standing on a boat hovering in the air over a desert, clad in only a white robe, and when he tried to move noticed his arms were bound behind his back. With a shock he also noticed he stood very near a plank that led off the end of the ship and into a deep pit in the sand, its scarred-earth sides like a gigantic version of those the anhkegs had popped from in the fields north of the Friendlry Arm. At the bottom of this bit an appropriate enlarged such beast lurked, its hard mandibles snapping hungrily.   
  
His heart sank again as he looked around, and saw that two friends were also bound near him, surrounded by hobgoblin guards with grosesque horned masks and spears. Garrick looked himself, but Minsc's body was covered in brown fur, and when he opened his mouth merely let out a beastlike howl.   
  
Then he noticed a larger ship flying near them, its deck populated with a number of strange monsters, prominent among them a huge, fat reclining flesh golem. He grew angry more than afraid when, right there before the ugly monster, was Imoen herself, but visibly bound in chains and clad only with a braissiere and girdle made of solid gold.   
  
"Oh ho ho ho ho ho..." the golem's bellowing laughter rippled across the ships and the sand.   
  
Near it stood, unbound, Khalid and Jaheira. Khalid wore a suit of armor and faced helm of gold, so tight and fitting it accentuated its natural leanness, and Jaheira was so short her arms dragged on the ground, and she was complaining to her husband, but only bleeps and bloops came out.   
  
"Onyx Coastwalker, Garrick Solo, and Minscbacca," Khalid began, quavering, "His Excellency hopes that you will die honorably. But should any of you wish to beg for mercy, the great Golem the Flesh will now listen to your please."   
  
With defiant bravado, Garrick Solo shouted, "Khaleepio, you and J2 tell that slimy piece of worm-ridden filth he'll get no such pleasure from us. Right?" Minscbacca howled in agreement.   
  
Onyx shouted, "Golem! This is your last chance! Free us or die!"   
  
The golem grumbled something, and the hobgoblin guards prodded him with their spears onto the plan and do its edge. Onyx jumped off, but flipped around in midair, grabbing the end with his bound hands and causing it to bend before catapulting him back into the air. J2 tossed a sword hilt off the larger ship and Onyx caught it, and as he landed on the smaller ship it ignited into the blue-glowing holy avenger from his last dream with Imoen. The other hobgoblin guards moved at him but were all tripped up by the spears of one of their own, which threw off its helmet in a flourish of white hair to reveal the ebony face of Viconia. Onyx twisted his grip to use the blade to cut through his bindings and he flew into a melee against the standing hobgoblins while Viconia undid Garrick and Minscbacca's bonds.   
  
Hobgoblin guards on the main ship unleashed a hail of ill-aimed arrows at the smaller, one hitting Viconia and knocking her of the boat. She grabbed the anchor-chain hanging from it, and the giant anhkeg snapped its mandibles. Garrick threw himself to the deck and reached over the edge for her while Minscbacca growled and pounded one of the hobgoblins with the drow's offcast helm.   
  
Bassilus Fett appeared at the edge of the larger ship's deck, armored and helmed, and leapt over the railing, flying through the air and landing on the boat, aiming a hand crossbow square at Onyx, who slashed it in half with his holy avenger. When Minsc bashed another guard, it spun around blindly and its spear whacked Bassilus in the back. The mad cleric resumed flying, but flailed as it out of control, and smashed into the side of the sand pit and then slid down without a scream, taken eagerly into the anhkheg's gullet.   
  
On the larger ship, Khalid was frantically running about in his shiny gold armor yelping, "Better part of valor, dear me!" while Imoen in her decidedly skimpier gold had leapt up and jumped clear over Golem the Flesh, pulling the chain that restrained her around one half of the grotesque creature's bulbous neck. She ran around him another half-circle and pulled with all her might while the golem gargled and its purple tongue hung limply out of its mouth.   
  
Garrick held a spear over the side of the boat for Viconia to grab, and Minsc hurled the slain hobgoblins' spears back at the inept archers on the main ship. Onyx surprised himself by leaping clear into the air and onto the deck of the ship, and proceeded to attack the archers with demonic fury, the holy avenger humming as it cut through one with ease amidst the monster's aborted attempt to retrain its bow on the paladin.   
  
Across the ship, Imoen was fiddling with the end of the chain attaching her to the dead golem, twisting and sliding out bolts. It came free, and just as a hobgoblin guard made for her she spun with the free chain whizzing around her in the air, smashing the beast across the face and sending him to the deck. She continued to spin her chain around and around overhead, whipping it into hobgoblin after hobgoblin as they attempted to move on her with spears.   
  
"Oh, dear!" Khaleepio wailed as a tiny kobold perched on top of his his helm and laughed, and a hobgoblin took a headlock of him from behind. Onyx ran up and raised his holy avenger, but this only caused the hobgoblin to tighten its grip around his friend's neck, and bellow menacingly.   
  
With a new flash of inspiration, Onyx raised up his free hand and gestured out toward the hobgoblin. "These aren't the Harpers you're looking for," he spoke in a soothing voice. The hobgoblin grunted in confusion, then shrugged, loosened its grip, and wandered off across the body-strewn ship.   
  
Gripping Garrick's spear, Viconia was pulled back onto the deck, and took to the wheel at its helm, spinning it and sailing the ship through the air over the expansive chasm while a halpless hobgoblin from the ship fell into the anhkeg's maw. Viconia brought the boat alongside the ship's deck, and Khaleepio and J2 scuttled on board, followed by Onyx and Imoen. The girl surprised herself by casting a Fireball back at the ship, which exploded in flames, sending debris and hobgoblins flying into the pit as the party's boat sped away over the sand.   
  
--   
  
Jade's eyes popped open, to stare at the triangular ceiling of her tent, to which a near-solid film of moisture droplets clung; as did sweat to her own skin. Her breathing was fast and heavy and excited, and her dreams all crystallized in her mind in the moment when she frantically tried to determine what all of her recent memories had been a dreamt and what real.   
  
Branwen stirred, whom Jade realized with a flash of guilt she had likely woken with her own start. "Are you okay?" the cleric asked.   
  
"Dreams," Jade whispered, "Just dreams."   
  
"So some say," Branwen mumbled, "And some say omens or portents."   
  
"What do you say?"   
  
"They may oft be the idle wanderings of the mind while the body has no need for it, but I believe the gods may send auguries across the astral plane to their favored children. I do believe in signs, as I believe the ruby chesspiece you found was a sign, but where any dream came from I could not even say were it my own, much less another's, but tell me more of it and I will share all the thoughts I have. Beyond that, I can say only that whether you choose to heed dreams or not, Jade, heed first yourself."   
  
The girl whispered, "Thank you, Branwen," and proceeded to retell her dreams.


	43. Gate Tricks Reloaded

**43. Gate Tricks Reloaded **  
  
"Father shall be furious," growled Sarevok Anchev, grinding his teeth against each other and his fists against the hardwood headboard. He leaned further in, against the resistance of his own pressed arms, and touched his domed scalp to the wood. "Our sabotaging sabotaged. All because I failed to kill them. I failed."   
  
His companion and consort, Tamoko, laid a hand upon his bare shoulderblades, and rubbed it slowly across the wide muscular back splayed across the bed, smearing a light layer of some plum-fragranced ointment. "It might be them, might not. Messenger did not know," she whispered in a calm and silky voice.   
  
"I know," he insisted, and leaned his head back up off the pillow, inhaling the fragrance and trying to hard too calm himself with it, negating the intended effect. "I failed."   
  
Tamoko sighed at this, and continued to rub. "I failed you, _aisuru _," she bowed her head slightly. "I fell while you fought, my _aisuru bishonen _."   
  
Sarevok jerked his body, forcing Tamoko to pull her hands away with the ointment still applied unevenly. "Irrelevant," he growled, never looking back at her. "A failure it remains."   
  
Tamoko sighed. "To err is human."   
  
"No!" Sarevok howled and flipped over, his shoulder knocking Tamoko's arm with a blow that would have toppled most from the bed; she was pushed it its edge but hung poised like a cat, one leg over the edge and air, opposite arm counterbalancing naturally. "I am more than that."   
  
Tamoko closed her eyes. "You are a man. My _bishonen _, my beautiful man."   
  
"I am SAREVOK!" he threw himself off the bed to the floor, pushing Tamoko carelessly out of the air. While his wide bare feet landed with bootlike thumps on the carpet, the slight Eastern woman fell to the floor, landing almost silently on all fours with spalyed toes and fingers. She hopped away from him as she took her feet, with a face showing only pragmatism, no resentment. She opened her mouth to sneak some apology, but he bellowed, and smashed his fist into the wall, crunching through hardwood and cracking mortar beyond.   
  
Tamoko sank to her knees, and bowed. "Being a man does not keep you from your goal, my lord, it empowers you." She looked up, taking in the near seven feet frame of hard muscle that towered over her.   
  
Sarevok growled, calmer but colder. "It is not enough. You do not understand. You have never understood, Tamoko. You never will." He strode past her, and she sat silently on her feet, hands in her lap, watching him with an impassive, resigned face as he threw on a black tunic, pants and long ill-weather cloak and riding boots. Carrying his towering, monstrous physique with civilized confidence that few of the city's slouching elite would have matched, he stormed out of the door, spurs clicking, and the moment it slammed shut, Tamoko's eyes opened, glazed with a film of trapped tears that now flowed down her coppery cheeks as she sobbed, hugged herself, and let free a wail.   
  
--   
  
Sarevok threw open the doors to the lab of his mentor, Winski Perorate. "The Amazons were found dead outside the mine's secret entrance. Not only was our operation sabotaged, the entire bottom level of the mine collapsed!"   
  
The wizard sat occluded by his high-backed metal chair, which faced with the convex bay window, circular and multipaned like a fly's eye. Rather than showing the city though, the panes now reflected scrying images of a wide variety of persons, creatures, and scenes. A wrinkled but unshaking hand appeared around its edge, gesturing faintly with a small silver wand. Each image in response showed the face of Sarevok as he now stood glowering in the mage lab.   
  
The austere throne turned without sound or visibly force, to reveal Winski. Sarevok arched an eyebrow, since their last meeting he had shed his black hood and cloak for a gray three-piece suit, put pounds and sun onto his gaunt and pale features, and grown a disciplined fu man chu.   
  
"Hello, Sarevok," he spoke in a calm and fatherly but ultimately hollow tone. "I've been waiting for you. You have many questions, and though your powers are altering your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo some of the prophecy you will understand, and some you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant."   
  
"What do we do?"   
  
"Your life is the residual of an unbalance of power inherent to the Time of Troubles. The twins are an anomaly which despire our sincerest efforts we have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a scheme of nefarious precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably... here."   
  
Sarevok sneered, and clenched his fists. "You haven't answered my question."   
  
"Quite right. I wish to alert you to the others."   
  
"Others? What others?"   
  
"The Matriarch of our faith has detected the emerge of five others before you."   
  
Sarevok frowned. "There are only two possible explanations, either no one told me, or no one knows.   
  
Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the phenomen is widespead – its wake sowing chaos in even the most simplistic villages.   
  
"I shall be chosen!" Sarevok howled and waved his fist, as did each scrying image in mimicry.   
  
"The first clergyhood under the Matriarch was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art – fearsome, sinisister. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of the Troubles are apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherit in every being and thus gods themselves. Thus, the Time of Troubles was designed to more accurately reflect the mortal frailties of such beings, resulting in a number of grotesqueries corollary to our nature. Faced with the inevitability of his own demise, your father came, however, to understand that immortality required a somewhat lesser avatar, or perhaps a vessel less bound by the parameters of divinity. This required a number of partners, but if he is the father of this prophecy, then she would undoubtedly be its mother.   
  
"His Matriarch. Amelyssan."   
  
"Please. As I was saying, she stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly all spawn would be sacrificed in infancy, while they were only aware of their own gifts at a near-unconscious level. While this answer functioned, it was obviously fouled by the Harpers, thus creating the emergence of the conditions for the prophecy which if fulfilled might threaten the entire world itself. Ergo those that survive, while a minority, if unchecked will constitue an escalating probability of disaster."   
  
"This is about Baldur's Gate."   
  
"You are here because the Sword Coast is soon to be destroyed – its every living inhabitant slain, its every farmstead pillaged and burned. Your function is to engineer strife on a scale worthy of your source, reinstating its primary power. Failure to succeed will result in a cataclysmic war with the others in the south which coupled with the extermination of Baldur's Gate will ultimately resule in the entire scorching of Toril."   
  
"Are all my competitors that inclined to survive?" Sarevok hissed, clenching his jaw and fanning his own resolve.   
  
"These competitors are by design imbued with a similar proclivity – a contingent antagonism that is meant to create a profound hatred for the rest of their own and all kindreds, facilitiating the function of the triumphant one. While the others have experienced this is a very unambiguous way, your experiences have been far more conflicted – vis a vis love."   
  
Sarevok gasped out the name of the woman each scrying illusion changed to reveal. "Tamoko."   
  
"Apropos, her love extends to only the man Sarevok, not what he could be, and she would dare to contravene us and preserve your mortal life, at the cost of her own."   
  
"No."   
  
"Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw of humanity is ultimately expressed, and your mortal vessel revealed as both beginning and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the stables, where you should ride now to visit the princess of your faithful and the salvation of her designs."   
  
"Cynthandria?"   
  
"The door to your left leads back to up the hall, to Tamoko and the demise of our plan. As you adequetately put, you are chosen, but now it is you who must do the choosing. But we already know what you are going to do, don't we? Already, I can see the chain reaction - the chemical precursors that signal the onset of an emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic and reason - an emotion that is already blinding you from the simple and obvious truth. She is going to betray us or die trying, and there is nothing you can do to stop it."   
  
Face wracked, Saervok shook his head in denial, then looked woundedly at Winski. "Whether she lives or dies, it shall be with honor."   
  
The wizard smirked, distorting his small beard. "Honor and morality. They are the quintessential human delusions."   
  
Sarevok grunted in agreement, and marched for the door on the right, Winski nodding in vague approval. "If I were you, I'd avoid slighting her honor again."   
  
Winski shrugged flippantly. "I won't need to."   
  
--   
  
Four hooves thunderclapped against the cobblestones of Baldur's Gate. The clouds that had that day rained upon his adversaries to the south, had over the night moved up to the Gate to drench it, appropriate enough for Sarevok's mood. His heart thudded in his great chest with each slam of his steed's front hooves, images and memories of Tamoko taking his senses from the dreary night. The sight of her art with the katana, the sound of her poetry in haiku, the feel and the grace of her body. As he rode northward through the gates into the old city, and then northwest up the wealthiest streets, the further he drew away the harder it became to deny it. She loved him, yes, but only Sarevok the man, she had never loved what he would become and never would.   
  
"She does not see that I do as she would have be!" he shouted, snarling at that same blasted gnome on the barrel, who held out a wooden icon of a skull wreathed in purple flame as he galloped by. Sarevok swerved, plowing his loyal warhorse for the barrel, but the gnome laughed, jumping from the barrel and disappearing into a magical sanctuary. Sarevok's mount blew through the barrel, splindering beam and twisting metal rim and thundering by, but he looked over his shoulder and snarled when no blood or body was seen laid out upon the cobblestones in due sacrifice. "She would believe one must honor the father!" he snarled to himself.   
  
"All shall be made agents of Tiax!" was screeched from somewhere on the cobblestones as Sarevok grunted and thundered on.   
  
He dismounted by the front steps to a towering five-gabled estate, tethering his mouth, and marching up the steps. He bashed his fist against the heavy oak door of Cynthandria's estate.   
  
Both swung open, held by an identical pair of figures. Each wore ivory-white three piece suits, with long coats, chalky albino skin, and dreadlocked hair powdered to match. Night as it was, their eyes were occluded by shaded spectacles that looked blankly into his own golden orbs.   
  
"You're late," one intoned in the crisp, jaded brogue of a Waterdhavian dilettante.   
  
"…she's been waiting," echoed the other with a smirk.   
  
Sarevok said nothing, throwing back his overcoat as he marched with steps as long as many men's prone bodies into the great foyer of the estate. A marble floor stretched away, growing into twin curling staircases flanked by statues on the banisters and weapons upon the walls, meeting in a high terrace.   
  
Front and center of a mural beneath the terrace with her hands poised upon her hips and her legs crossed, was a cream-gowned voluptuous woman of regal bearing and a face as beautiful as it was haughty. Her moony yet skeptical eyes never left his as she saunted across the floor until she came face-to-chest with Sarevok.   
  
She looked up at him and snapped, "Sarevok…" in a voice of impatient wont.   
  
"Cynthandria," Sarevok pronounced the name of his old consort dryly, "How enchanting."   
  
She smirked. "My power only grows."   
  
He smirked back. "If it comes with experience."   
  
She slapped him across the cheek. His head did not budge, and she snapped, "If you want to the key to your machinations, come with me." Without waiting for an answer, she turned. With the liveried albinos flanking him, Sarevok followed her back up the right stairwell, and with nary a gesture on her part the double doors at its back flew open to allow her passage into the central second-floor hallway of her estate. She waltzed on, never once turning to look at him, though his bootsteps were loud enough to indicate his acquesinece so far.   
  
The last door on the left flew open and she led him into a sprawling bedchamber. A four-poster wider than long was its centerpiece, artwork depicting wizardesses unleashing various spellpowers lined the walls, and Sarevok noticed Cynthandria herself was unfailingly their subject, often little of her left up to the art consumer's inference. He noticed that champagne was chilling in ice, and magical waterfalls sprung from the walls here and there, trickling their way gently to rivulets in the floor. The room was evenly bathed in a low, romantic candlelight without of any visible source.   
  
Sarevok raised an eyebrow as her seeming bodyguards stepped through the doorway.   
  
Cynthandria smirked at this, and cooed with hollow sympathy, "Assassination hasn't been the buyer's market of late, has it my lord?"   
  
Sarevok clenched his teeth and fists, face reddening and eyes burning bright.   
  
Uncorking and pouring the champagne, Cynthandria admired herself in a mirror, glancing occasionally from her own reflection to Sarevok's, and continued, "They are unsurpassed."   
  
Sarevok snorted, and the twins smirked back.   
  
One droned, "We're the best…"   
  
"..we'll prove it," the other smirked and they clenched their fists.   
  
"No you won't," Sarevok snarled and took a stride for them.   
  
"Enough…." Cynthandria hissed. "Winski vouched for us, my lord. He would not want any of you damaged."   
  
Sarevok grunted. "They don't look like much."   
  
Cynthandria giggled evilly. "That is precisely the idea."   
  
With a node from her, the pale twins abruptly morphed into greenish creatures with lipless fangs and deepset eyes.   
  
Sarevok's eyes burned bright. "Dopplegangers!"   
  
Cynthandria tossed her hair back in small triumph, saunting right up to and offered the second champagne glass to Sarevok while sipping her own glass, and looking over the goldenrod surface of the liquid at Sarevok. "Twins of anyone for any reason. My lord. Assassinate, impersonate, frame…"   
  
The doppelgangers shifted back into their chosen human forms, and silently drifted back out of the room, smirking as they closed the door. "I also keep werewolves, if you prefer," Cynthandria offered with a lift of a bare, olive-skinned shoulder, "After all, how many people keep silver arrows in their quivers?"   
  
"What is your price, woman," Sarevok demanded impatiently.   
  
"My lord!" Cynthandria gasped in mock offense, and swished her glass, "Did I not once swear to serve you in every capacity I could? And to that end, I desire you to kiss me."   
  
Sarevok snorted. "Why did I know you were going to say that?"   
  
She smiled, downing the last of her champagne and tossing away the glass, with telekinetically levitated down gently where it had first been. She sashayed her hips as her eyes kept on his like a striking snake. "I desire you to kiss me as if you were kissing _her _." As she came up to his chest, Sarevok grunted in acquesience, leaning in and sealing his lips over hers for a moment. "Terrible," she broke away, shaking her head and strutting toward the mirror the even out her lipstick. Sighing with faux-despair, she cried, "How can I possibly best serve my lord's ends when he won't let me stand at his side?"   
  
Sarevok rolled his all-gold eyes, but they drew to her posterior sculped tight by the gown as she bent over the vanity mirror. "Very well," he growled in a low, calm tone, shook his head, and unclasped his cloak. As she reapproached, he struggled for a moment remembering the propler way to wrap his arms about her, then took one about her waist and the other behind her head, and leaned down, closing his eyes and letting his mind carry away as he performed a kiss of storybook-caliber deepness and passion.   
  
Their lips parted moistly, and he straightened up with a confident grin. Cynthandria smiled drunkenly, rubbing a finger down his lips and cooing, "I believed in you since I first laid eyes upon you, my lord."   
  
Sarevok threw his head back and bellowed in laughter and reverberated across the dark bedchamber. "I _shall _be the one! All fear the coming revolution!"


	44. The Beach

**44. The Beach **  
  
The crashing of waves could be heard within the tent. Onyx and Imoen awoke simultaneously, their breathing fast and ragged and at once revealing each other's waking. Imoen's hands were frozen outthrust above herself, wrists together, in mimicry of the Fireball spell she had cast at the last moment of her dream. The image of the destroyed airship was fresh in their minds as they looked at each other, blue eyes moving frantically for some signal from the other. He looked at her hands, understood she'd had the dream, and she saw this in his eyes.   
  
"Strange," he whispered.   
  
"Special," she whispered back, voice like her eyes bright and curious.   
  
"The night we met J and K, I dreamt..."   
  
"...you fell and I caught you."   
  
"It really was you."   
  
"In my dream I chose to."   
  
"Of course you did," Onyx smiled, and reached up to brush an auburn bang out of Imoen's face.   
  
"What happened to your hand?" she asked.   
  
The hand was fine, but he looked at it and understood. "The one who killed our father...no, it wasn't him, it was...something like him, but older and eviler and set in its ways. Maybe it was what he was trying to be or becoming..."   
  
"Maybe it's what we're supposed to stop him from becoming." Imoen thought for a moment, and added, "I was talkin' to Dyna about divination on the march."   
  
"I recall," Onyx smiled. "Curious Immy."   
  
"Of course!" she beamed. "I know what she'd say if we told her."   
  
"To heed them?"   
  
"She said most dreams were meaningless, but some weren't. Some are about things that have happened..."   
  
"...I've dreamt about Gorion's death, and Jade was there again. Really there..."   
  
"...those tell you more about the events. If things are differnet or strange, it's a symbol. Some are about things that are happening. Those are things you wouldn't see but need to know. Some are about things that will be or may be.Those are the ones you're supposed to achieve or prevent."   
  
Onyx blinked. "I see."   
  
"Maybe yours are omens from Lathander."   
  
"There are parts that feel like him. Like the glowing sword. I had it in the first dream too, in the severed hand. There are parts that feel antithetical."   
  
"It could be him warning you about evil."   
  
"It could be evil."   
  
Imoen's face paled, and she remained silent for a minute. "Do you remember the wand we found in the ankheg nest the next day?"   
  
"With the body of the farmer's son?"   
  
"Yeah. A wand of fire. I was curious and asked Garrick about it. Just curious, y'know, didn't get far. In the dream, it was like that, even though I didn't have the wand. And now, laying here, it all fits together now. The somatics, the verbals, the pressure and angle and grip and everything. I know I know how to use it."   
  
"Like how you figured out the magic missiles wand," Onyx grinned.   
  
"Yep!" Imoen beamed again. "I think sometimes dream are just your mind working through stuff itself, figuring out stuff. Maybe sometimes you can kinda think better asleep than awake."   
  
"Maybe," Onyx beamed with pride for his friend, "But I'm gonna go pray now. Haven't managed to do that asleep yet."   
  
"K," Imoen rolled her head facing up again and shut her eyes, "'s not even light yet. I guess I'm just the sleepyhead, but I'm gonna be here."   
  
Onyx curled up, grabbing two pendants and hanging them around his neck, tucked under his cotton tunic. He untied open the door-flap and crawled out of the tent, and tied it again. It was indeed predawn, though the sky was lightening, and the air was humid and slightly foggy from the previous day and night's rain. He started at the sight of Viconia sitting on the driftwood log, eyes wide open, before realizing she was in reverie, in that strange elfkind state, resting yet on watch. Trying not to disturb her, despite the eerie feeling that she must be aware of him all the same, he walked barefoot away from the camp, and the ground became increasingly sandy rather than dirty, until he was on the actual beach, which like any on the mostly-rocky Sword Coast was at the current tide only about fourty feet of sand before the water.   
  
He was just pulling the holy symbol on its neckchain over his collar and sinking to one knee when he heard soft footsteps on the sand behind himself. Viconia he assumed, but turned to find Safana instead, free of the conforming leather suit she had worn all of the day previous day. Now draped on her was a crimson silk pareo and sarong, the one tied around her chest between the collar and midriff, and the other tied around her hips and hanging more over her right leg than the left. Her hair was now done up in a pair of girllike ponytail that flopped over a bronzed shoulder, and she too was barefoot. She was smiling brightly in the predawn, also girllike on her thirtyish face.   
  
"Restless?" she asked in a low voice than rolled with the waves, but like her eyes was now more bright and curious than purring and assured.   
  
His eyes flicked up from caught staring at her body and he swallowed audibly. "I pray at dawn," he answered while nodding in greeting.   
  
Safana smiled back. "Ah yes, the Morninglord." Her hand was on the sunrise-emblazoned gold disk before it was noticed by him, and she lifted it off with a brush of her knuckles against his chest, and admired it for a moment before casting her eyes to the eastern, inland horizon. "Seems you left time to kill."   
  
He scratched the back of his head. "You were right Safana, I was restless."   
  
She smirked. "She chatter in her sleep, too?"   
  
He made a point of not looking amused. "Only dreams."   
  
She raised an eyebrow. "Care to indulge me?" she chirped.   
  
"So vivid, what happens, and the emotions. As real as a true battle."   
  
Safana cocked her eyerows knowingly. "When we found the sirens, one could say you were in a dream."   
  
He intook his breath sharply, and found his nostrils abuzz with a cinnamon fragrance on her as he answered, "I hesitate to remember that travesty. But yes, it felt like a dream."   
  
Safana nodded expectantly, leaning in and angling her gaze up to meet his. "Then it's fair to say it was a dream come true."   
  
"It was more like a nightmare."   
  
"Mmm," Safana cocked her head in flippant thought before looking at and grinning at him again, teasing her lower lip between her teeth. "You're new on the road. Natural as breathing."   
  
He nodded, and looked alternatively into her eyes and north along the coast. "I wanted so much to be out of Candlekeep, for years. My twin sister even more so. Treated like children until twenty. Practically life expectancy for a paladin." He hesitated, feeling like he'd stepped over his own grave, for a fleeting moment that revelation made him wonder many things.   
  
"Better learn to appreciate life quick then," she winked and grinned. "Nah, most tin-heads just don't know when to pick their battles. Your mothering druid was right, it's good you hugged the coast and not the bandit-run roads."   
  
"And besides, that's how we met you, right?" he smirked playfully, then his face fell again and he continued. "Eager to fight, eager to quest, eager to make something of ourselves and see the world. Immy too. Likes books better, but I think she just might have gone through them all."   
  
Safana nodded patiently. "But now that it's here, you wish nothing more than the safety and comfort?"   
  
"Exactly."   
  
She inhaled, and looked out to sea. "It was like that for me. Spoiled daughter of a pasha, one could scarcely wall without tripping over a servant laying rare comforts at my feet. I could have had anything my heart desired. Except, of course, freedom. I traded that for everything else, only to realize the moment I was stranded on a floating stack of scalywags that they were all just using their freedom in pursuit of the luxuries I had cast off, without a hope of ever attaining a small fraction."   
  
"But have you not enjoyed the Life?"   
  
"Oh, you've no idea," she purred. "Freedom takes more savvy and it takes some getting used to. I know you were cast into it by another's hand, and a rather evil-sounding one at that, but it gives you something I've never really had. Purpose." She bumped his hip with hers. "You'll get your sea legs. Charge ahead, not back. Learn to take the good with the bad. Between two evils, I'll choose the one I haven't tried."   
  
Onyx closed his eyes while he chuckled under his breath, and his smile broadened. He nodded slightly, and inhaled expressly for the taste of her cinnamon perfume.   
  
"Luminescence…" Safana murmured with interest, and Onyx opened his eyes to find her pointing into the water, where beneath the surface a moonglow wavered. She flipped her ponytail up in its direction, then looked back at him. "Better up close. Water's great this time of year. C'mon."   
  
With a last grin and wink she strode down the beach, hands making no noise as they reached between her shoulderblades, and the pareo's knot seemed undone the moment she touched it. It slipped down her back and fell off her thighs to prove the unbroken copper hue of her smoothly muscled back. Onyx inhaled involuntarily as at the touch of one hand to the knot at her left hip the sarong fell away to reveal the right leg as well as she had been the left. Her thighs matched the development her shoulders, which swayed left and right to reveal crescent curves beyond.   
  
Onyx closed his eyes for a moment, cocked his head left and right, and then opened them, throwing his tunic over his head and onto the sand, and reaching for the two pendants. He hesitated as he studied each – one, the gold sunrise disc, the other, the looped lock of golden hair. He jerked his gaze away, not looking at each again as he pulled the chains over his head, and dropped them by his wayside over the tunic. He shed his lower body as he closed the distance to the waterline, and found the water agreeable as it first lapped his feet. His eyes followed Safana's strokes as she swam out, and he rushed and dove in.   
  
He didn't catch up until she had dove clear under the water, pushing her way near the bottom to the rocky twists of indigo coral where the multicolored glow shimmered, now with a green-blueish hue that grew brighter and brighter as the sky lightened. The undercurrent rocked her back and forth as she butterflied her arms up and out to maintain her depth, looking around through the water shoreward as she felt the submerged ripples from Onyx swimming up to meet her. His eyes were straining wide as they took in the luminescence, and then looked toward her. They paddled into each other, each grabbing the other about the waist and treading with the other arm to steady as their faces moved in, to merge lips, and open them with a perfect seal, exchaniging slight inhales and exhales as his mouth pressured further around hers.   
  
Feet hit the sand of the shallows, and the lapping surface of the sea broke to the top of his head, then hers, locked in the same kiss while her hair fell back to the surface or her shoulders, the ponytail tie forgotten and gone. He reached a hand around to hold her head and pressed the kiss; she grasped an arm around his collar, pulling herself up and in until the tops of her breasts broke the waterline and pressed into him. She let her head fall back away from his, throwing her hair off her shoulders and arcing her back. Her knees popped above the water flanking his armpits and moved back aside his shoulderblades, and he folded his upper arms down to brace the lower thighs against his ribs. His other hand disappeared below the water, the arm drawing alongside her body, and a moment his body pushed up against hers and he slid his lips up past hers and gasped, just before she kicked her head back to release a moan over the water. He pulled her head back toward his, and the locked gazes and lips while their hands tightened and loosened against each other. They rocked with the waves, while dawn broke and passed.


	45. Surgeon and Shoal

**45. Surgeon and Shoal **  
  
_"I like you, yes I do   
(Wertle, wertle, wertle, wooo....)   
I know of a way to make you like me, too   
(Wertle, wertle, wertle-wooooo....)   
Down by the ocean, down by the sea,   
A pirate ship's waiting for you and for me.   
Bring me what in it but don't ever wear it   
Or sure enough, soon enough, you'll wertle too..." _  
  
Onyx and Safana looked at once another, eyebrows furrowed, and looked forward again at the gnome known as Mad Arcand.   
  
"A most eccentric gnome," Dynaheir observed.   
  
"Is there any other kind?" Viconia declared, sounding bored.   
  
"The riddle he poses is simple enough," the Wychalarn declared, ignoring the drow and addressing the party, and pointing with her bejewled hand coastward to the sorry wreckage of a wooden vessel.   
  
"Of course it is," Viconia tossed her ivory hair back over the green ankheg-plated shoulders, "But what point is there bandying with insane svirfneblin?"   
  
"That term refers to only one subrace of gnomekin," Dynahier lectured her pointedly.   
  
Viconia made a point of not seeming to listen, but then replied, "Short and stupid, same enough for me."   
  
Safana sneered at both of them. "The mad midget riddles of a treasure in the ship, _that _is good enough for me."   
  
"A cursed treasure, obviously," Jaheira retorted, grimacing at all three.   
  
"Um..." Imoen chirped in, but none of the four paid her any heed until she scrambled into their midst (a fortunate thing, as they seemed close to blows or spells), "The ship's right over there, we coulda like...been there by now."   
  
This abruptly silenced the others, and the party without any more words made the few minutes' march to the edge of the rocky coast. Dynaheir cast a magic detection cantrip as she had on the supposed pirate treasure of Safana's, and at her direction samesaid thief slunk into the rotting hulk rammed into the rocks, barely causing it to creak until she slunk out a minute later, ring in hand.   
  
Imoen's eyes brightened, and Safana flipped it over in her hand mercurially, shooting the younger thief a smirk begging for envy.   
  
"Don't either of you dare..." Jahiera intoned.   
  
"I know, I know..." Imoen sighed, "Ony already told me...when we found Dyna's wizard-ring outside the Arm, that story about the ring that tried to possess the halflings..."   
  
Khalid added, "I heard J-J-Jade's evil hench-hobbit saying it was his uncle Sackins.."   
  
Jahiera looked skeptically at her husband. "Yes, but you know the way the Harpers tell it, Elminster guided them nearly the whole way and then almost singlehandedly diverted the evil armies from their path."   
  
"Really?" Onyx raised his eyebrows. "The way I read it growing up, that was all the heir to the throne with the hands of healing and the legendary sword..."   
  
"Yes of course," Minsc proclaimed, "But he was a ranger."   
  
--   
  
"The man was also a ranger," Kivan shook his head at an attentive Jade as their party closed on Beregost, "But 'twas the elven archer who struck down more of the foes."   
  
"Bah!" Kagain spat, hefting the axe on his shoulder, "The dwarf slew more orcs! They counted!"   
  
"I do seem to recall," Jade frowned, "It was a mortal woman who made the greatest kill."   
  
"...one of plainly northern heritage," Branwen added.   
  
"After a hobbit done the hamstringin'," Montaron waggled his finger.   
  
"Ah yesss..." Xzar slurped, playing with several fishbones from his spell components pouch, "But we mussn't forget their precious guide, musn't we?"   
  
"Banal pseudoheroic futility," Edwina sneered, idly admriing her nails, "They never truly killed the evil wizard, who was obviously only biding his time before some greater scheme could be engineered. (And the good wizard...pah! Such a pretentious moralizing windbag, nothing more. He cast scarcely a cantrip the entirety of the quest.)"   
  
--   
  
_"What a beautiful ring, where-e'er did you get it   
(most quite likely near where exactly I put it..)   
Wertle, oh wertle, oh dear wertle-wooo...   
Wertle, oh wertle, oh woo...   
Oh I know what you're thinking   
Of Mad Arcand the Stinking   
Who takes what you give him   
And gives not back to you..   
So, here, take this bottle but please don't unstopple   
Or (wertle, poor wertle), you'll surely get burned!" _  
  
In exchange for the cursed ring the gnome had apparently left just to be fetched, he yielded a vial which Garrick identified as an oil of fiery burning, which when lobbed exploded into a fireball. The party moved on, Viconia hissing in pain until the gnome's ceaseless, toneless singing left the range of even her keen ears.   
  
Before they had gone much further up the coast, a human traveler was spied coming south. He waved naturally enough and Onyx sensed no evil, and he stopped calmly to addresss the nine. An older man he was, in a travel-worn gray cloak, but more worn were his own features, carrying years and sorrow.   
  
"It is not often that I meet travels in these parts of the wilderness," he addressed them.   
  
Viconia snickered, "Funny, seems we can't help but cross a dozen a day."   
  
The old man glanced neutrally to the drow before continuing, "If you desire, I have the skills necessary to heal you."   
  
"Appreciated, but not needed," Onyx held up a hand, "A charitable parlance indeed, good man."   
  
The old man nodded at the subtext. "You may call me the Surgeon. I heal others in penance for what I have done in my past. Many have died because of a foolish act of charity on my part. I have a brother, an evil man by the name of Davaeorn. He lives because I was too weak-hearted to kill him when I had the chance. Many have died at his hands, including...including our own father."   
  
Onyx swallowed. "My own was recently slain. I sympathize with you greatly, I would despair all the more were the murderer my own brother."   
  
The Surgeon tilted his head, and squinted keenly. "I am sure you would. I have heard that my brother has come to this region, and I hope to meet him one day, to rectify my previous mistake. Your group seem to be adventurers...perhaps you might come to fight my brother. This may be wishful thinking on my part...   
  
Onyx shook his head, "Not at all. I shall if this Davaeorn can be found. I seek all men of evil, not only those who have wronged myself or my friends."   
  
The Surgeon nodded with approval at the paladin. "Wisdom, for often one finds many evils flow from one source. If you are as you say, then know this - he now conspires an organization known as the Iron Throne, who have some mischief in this land with the mineral of the same mane. It is thus he came to this region, and myself too."   
  
Onyx nodded, "Wisdom indeed, for the source of these misdeeds we already sought."   
  
The Surgeon continued, "You will find up this stream to your source a mine deep within the Cloakwood. It is mined by the Throne while they poison the compettion from Nashkel and use highway-bandits to de facto embargo all that from afar. Precisely where in the woods I cannot say, but if your quest and ideals are as you claim, you would do well to venture into its dark heart, and pierce that of my brother."   
  
A chorus of affirmative murmurs resonated from all save Safana and Viconia, and the Surgeon withdrew a bright yellow flask. "Take this, it would help you in an fight against magic-users."   
  
He handed off a potion Onyx once again passed to Garrick. "Fully half magic resistance," the bard explained after peering and sniffing withing the vial.   
  
Onyx tipped his helmed head in thanks, and without saying anything further, the Surgeon nodded in kind and passed on his way, leaving the party to look at one another quizzically.   
  
"A lead, perhaps, but he seemed as addled as the gnome," Jaheira spoke.   
  
"The Cloakwood is north beyond Beregost," Onyx shrugged, "Once we confer with my sister we'll all decide what do to."   
  
"If her company has not further poisoned her young mind," she shook her head. The party had resumed marching, but at once went silent and tense and all but Safana fell back from her and Onyx.   
  
Her charge glared at her with hurt and anger. " _Further? _My sister's heart may not walk our path, but her mind is quite clear. I will not believe ill of her just yet. If a paladin can make this allowance, surely a druid can, Jaheira. She is far more 'balanced' than I in any sense."   
  
Her mouth remained tight and sour and she looked witheringly at her charge. "Your beliefs should not recognize blood," she hissed, "Blood will blind you, my charge. Love will blind you. Even less may the more." Her glared drifted pointedly past him to Safana.   
  
Onyx looked at the ground, shaking his head angrily. "It's my life to live." He took Safana's hand, and the two looked forward without meeting Jaheira's gaze again. She sneered, and fell back.   
  
They marched in silence until Viconia called out an alert of another school of sirens well ahead on the shores. The silent party only tensed with the recollection of yesterday's battle, Imoen whimpering with the memory of being nearly beheaded by her best friend, who exchanged long faces with Minsc.   
  
"I'll parlay," Onyx stated.   
  
" _Wael-rivvel-sartglin! _!" Viconia screamed, stomping around to putting herself square before him. "It was _you _and your oaf ally who feel most easily to their enchantments!"   
  
Minsc cringed, seeming to shrink from his size to a hobbit's, but Onyx closed his eyes patiently, and spoke in a calm voice that was both tenuous and confident. "I understand everyone's obvious concern. But that will not happen again. That _can not _happen again."   
  
Imoen's face grew throughtful, and she turned, and looked pleadibly at Dynaheir.   
  
"Let him go," the Wychalarn pronounced. None others spoke as Onyx moved forward, with only Safana alongside, who stopped behind a tree when they had closed the distance to the nymphs half again. Leaving sword upon his hip and bow upon his back, he marched up, straight and casual, trying not to appear to be either slinking or charging. The five sirines soon took notice, and stood frozen for a moment with their beautiful faces hardening. Four cast their charm spells, and the paladin felt them descend about his thoughts one after the other, but now he understood each quite clearly, the tugging upon his emotions cooled, and he dismissed each as such.   
  
The four sirines looked at each other, and cast again as the fifth stepped forward, swanlike as she approached in bare feet silent on the beach. A second round of charm spells descended, and the paladin made a point of looking lucidly at the one who approached, her face not hostile, but quite frightened, hugging her arms over the bare and perfect body her kind seemed assured to possess. Briefly, Onyx's thoughts were dragged away from the parlance at hand, wondering what he had aloud in Lathander's temple. He was torn between lusting over her form as he should, and feeling the sheer _unrealness _of such a perfect, sculpted form was too alien to be understood and thus desired.   
  
"Please help me, will you?" the creature cooed in a tremoring voice that had his heart charged with sympathy and protective feelings at once, "I am Shoal the Nereid, and we are alone on this desolute dry-land, and who knows what lurks in these woods."   
  
Onyx caught the sway of his feelings, and leaned his head back in a gesture of hesitation. "Nothing stands between you and the sea...but accompany me wherever you must go, and I will make certain you are safe."   
  
He held out an open hand in offering, and she strutted closer, her features brightening, "Wonderful!" She smiled, and pouted her moist, silken, and pale lips. "Perhaps a kiss to show my apprecation?"   
  
Onyx stepped back at once, trying fervently to recall his lore of fey creatures, the evil temptresses among them long the undoing of many of his own profession. "It is...not my place to do so," he nodded warily, but with a polite smile, "I hardly know you."   
  
Her face went a bit sour, and she whined, "I am truly sorry, but I must insist!" and lunged at him. Onyx danced back, holding his left arm out before his face as he drew Varscona. He lifted it across himself and his other arm, and swung it down again at the nereid as she closed fearlessly, slashing her chest from right breast to left hip, the blade not cutting deeply as the force sent her back off her feet at to the grass.   
  
"No!" she shrieked in chilling mortal terror. Swayed again, Onyx stayed his next blow. "This is no longer fun! I cannot die for this! They are my actions, but not my intent! I can but do as I am bid by the master!"   
  
Onyx held his sword up more ready for another strike, and shouted, "Explain your actions, or I shall continue!" He glanced away only briefly to see that the sirines seemed to ignore him again, and wondered at this.   
  
Shoal seemed to accentuate her helpless posture upon the ground, and cried, "I would not be here at all, but my shawl is held by Ogre-Droth. It is my essence he commands, so to him I listen. It was a lark for a while, but no longer. I do not want to harm you further, but if he so wills, then I must. It is all I can do."   
  
Onyx's eyes widened, and at once he willed his evil detection again and looked frantically about for an ogre, or ogre mage as he suspected from this supposed ability to command fey. "Then I shall fight as best I can, to release you from his grasp," he spoke down to Shoal will looking about still.   
  
Her voice took on a certain sadistic curiosity that reminded him sharply of Viconia, as she murmured. "Oh, that could be interesting...yes, do that."   
  
'Droth' did indeed appear to be an ogre mage, as he teleported from thin air, a large greenish ugly brute in garish red with a nasty scimitar nearly as long as Onyx, and bellowed, "What be this trouble Shoal? Whyt you have not destrotyed this small-pink? You're not to make me angry, water-child?"   
  
Shoal maintained her helpless prone pose upon the grass, and loooked back over her shoulder at the monster. "It is not my fault, Ogre-Droth. He alone is stronger than I."   
  
"Pah!" Droth snorted, pig-like, "They are meat for larger and gold for purse! Kill him and friends we shall!"   
  
Shoal shivered, and whimpered. "As you say...so shall it be."   
  
Onyx pointed his sword in the mage's direction and cried, "By what right do you keep this creature captive, _Ogre _? Return what is rightfully hers."   
  
The monster let out a gluttonous bass chuckle. "She told you this? You struck soundly to addle her mind so. 'Tis true that I possess her shawl, but water-child my mate. Envy of all others I am! I am Ogre-Mage Droth! I kill and kill WELL!"   
  
His voice fell into incomprehensibility that Onyx took for casting. With the abhorrent disgust of his claim upon her as a 'mate', the paladin charged, but the ogre vanished and could be heard to move. Onyx thrust and then swung about, but could find only air. Frantically, he moved about and lifted his right shoudler to grab his shield from his back and slip it on the left arm. He turned around rapidly, swinging and holding his shield high for the imminent attack, marveling also at the lack of sound he expected on the part of the beast.   
  
No sneak scimitar swing came, instead Onyx heard a loud should and crackle behind himself. It was the first time he heard or saw a Lightning Bolt spell, and halfway through his turn to face the electric popping sounds, the bolt zoomed right through the center of his body, flying out through all his limbs and spidering over the metal that covered his body and back in again. His knees hit the grass and his teeth chattered so hard he nearly broke teeth against each other or cut off his own tongue before withdrawing it.   
  
The ogre mage laughed, and stomped in with his scimitar raised to behead the kneeling, helpless human, when a throwing knife implanted itself in the thick skin of his throat, and another's point landed perfectly in his beady eye and put it out. The other eyes rolled up, and he howled at the sight of Safana, now approached from her hiding place. She tossed again, and the ogre turned invisible. The knife seemed to strike as it too disappeared, and she drew out her twin serrated shortswords, and danced about with feints and swipes at the air. "Get up!" she hollered at her injured consort, her voice unscolding as Jaheria's would have been, simply impersonal and harshly matter-of-fact. He finally rose, and like her resumed circling, swinging his sword in strikes that were blind, but with the force of purpose, moving his shield about himself left and right, up and down.   
  
The ogre appeared opposite him from Safana, and threw out a lightning bolt with each of them in its path. Onyx leapt aside, taking the energy through his shield and shield-arm and shouting through the pain. Safana cleanly evaded its path and charged the ogre. Onyx moved in with her, and while the beast cast again buried his blade deep in its belly. Still it seemed to to cast, but Safana dashed around him and sliced out the backs of his knees along the way. Droth fell backwards, nearly ripping Varscona from Onyx's grip, and crashed onto the ground just as it flew were his face had been and three magic missiles blasted the warty flesh.   
  
These were Khalid's and Dynaheir's, and the rest of the party was upon them in time to nearly be splattered with black blood as Onyx summarily buried the long edge of Varscona a foot into the ogre's trunk of a neck, ending even his persistent, odious life.   
  
"A stunning victory once again!" Garrick declared, holding his crossbow aloft as if it had had some part in the affair.   
  
"And the last in which we allow our brave little knight to nearly get himself single-handedly _killed _," Jahiera declared. Onyx sighed, she had a point.   
  
"He had passable assistance," Viconia murmured with a dismissive glance at Safana, "Not as impressive as my command of the dozen undead against Bassilus, but it passes muster this time."   
  
The pirate swashbuckleress tipped her head left and right and silently mouthed along with the drow in mockery. "I'm so sorry to have missed it, dark witch."   
  
This raised an eyebrow from Dynaheir as well, but Viconia's latest round of intraparty bickering was cut short as Shoal rose and sighed, "By the waters of home, I am free once more!"   
  
Safana smirked pointedly at her, stopping the nereid in her tracks as she turned toward the water, and the four sirines who now approached. "Oh please. I've done my time dealing with acquatic nymphos, and after the way you sea hags charm your 'manlings', it's a fine irony to see you finally appreciating freedom of the mind."   
  
The four sirines looked at one another in pairs as the came up around Shoal, who appraised the woman with a cool smile. "A fine irony indeed as I sense a tinge of the same magic with you, who need care not, it would seem your manling has little to fear from us now. I'll not spend another second on this hard-land. It was a fun game, but it was stale now. Thank you, goodbye!"   
  
"Game!?" Safana shrieked, stepping right up to Shoal as she and her entourage turned away and drifted back to the water. It was as well, the rest of the party thought, the way she flung her blade-wielding arms out would likely have invited another fight had they faced her still. "Get your sylvan sorcery off my beach!"   
  
The nymphs only obliged, drifting intot the water, and Jaheira snickered. "But of course...the land is there your domain, and territorialism is seen all about us in the wild." She smirked, and gestured left and right to the land and sea. "And even more so, it would seem, in civilization."   
  
Safana stepped almost nose-to-nose with her, forcefully sheathing her blades.   
  
Imoen murmured, "Reeeeowr...."   
  
They each turned, glanced irritably at the girl, and backed from one another.   
  
"If you're all quite finished," Dynaheir spoke, quite calm, "We might press on."   
  
"Beregost?" Imoen chirped, but her eyes brightened even further when Dynaheir responded.   
  
"I believe we were headed to this wondrous High Hedge."


	46. Hedged Uncertainties

**46. Hedged Uncertainties **  
  
With her dreams and Branwen's thoughts still on her mind, Jade dressed and slid from her tent, happy to hear the snores of Kagain, Xzar, Montaron, and Edwina (whose now wafted in a distinct alto); she was eager for idly practice with her new scimitar, Icingdeath. No sooner had she gone past the first trees from their campsite, though, than she came upon Kivan; already out of reverie. He stood within a comfortable gap of the trees and underbrush, and he now practiced with Drizzt's other scimitar, Defender, the morally aligned weapon that, Jade recalled with an internal wash of anger and guilt both, had weighed a ton in her grasp. Free of his hooded and cloaked and down to a sleeveless doublet, the elven ranger now twirled it in a two-handed grip, muscles rippling in the arms and finessed twisting in the hands; the sword's motions flowing crescents that glinted the bright dawn light of a welcome cloudless day after the overcast rain of the previous.   
  
He betrayed no notice of her for several minutes, continuing and completion a long, obviously long-practiced form. Jade stood content to watch avidly, and at the end he finally met her gaze, and then looked to her scimitar. She smiled, brushed back a scarlet bang, and stepped form within the ring of trees. He faced half-away from her, taking a guard stance and extending Defender in one arm, laying the flat of the blade over the other forearm extended forth. Jade mimiced his stance with Icingdeath, noting with a bright smirk that the male elf's figure was little different from her own. He looked to her as he slowly moved into the first technique of the form, drawing back his arm and the forward leg and sweeping through the air with Defender, taking the second hand in grip and arcing the blade in a backslash, then about again in a third slash. Jade followed each of his movements, as he continued on through the form, a painstaking but gentle ballet of posture and parry and attack that moved them in a star pattern opposite one another within the trees. The sun rose on, glinting brighter and brighter off their exquisite blades, the air grew warmer but Jade's body remained calm and cool and her face crisp and alert.   
  
She exhaled in satisfaction as she swirled her scimitar through the final eight-point technique of the form, but her pride was cut short as a deep, womanly yell came back from the camp.   
  
"You might have informed me _last night _that you wanted to keep your cursed form, _before _I memorized Remove Curse!" The yell was Branwen's, and none too amused.   
  
"Oh, you're just jealous because I make a far comelier woman," Edwina's sharp but syrupy voice snapped back. "Don't be so put out. It encouraged you to ask your silly warrior's-god for the third tier of spells and now they've been granted; not that it's much use compared to the arcane power simmering from my fingernails." Within the circle of tents, she stood opposite the dead fire from the cleric, fanning her fingers to inspect her gold-painted nails.   
  
"The Lord of Battles does not grant power idly!" Branwen's face reddened, but Edwina ignored her in favor of the study of her manicure. "It is disgraceful enough we delayed hunt of Tranzig to pursue your illegitmiate would-be assassination, now you must disdain me outright? You made a mockery of a man, and as a woman you only pander to the chauvanist superstitions of my tribe."   
  
"Because I've heard of a 'comb'?" Edwina giggled and tossed back her long raven tresses. "You'd come in dead last in a beauty pageant of she-orcs. Even we...the men of Thay have more fashion sense than you."   
  
"Tempus grant me patience!" Branwen threw up her arms, and turned to pack in her tent.   
  
--   
  
Three hours later, Jade was examining the rectilinear shapes of Beregost piercing the gentle treeline on the horizon; at her side Kivan inspeted them in great detail and looked continually about for wild monsters   
  
"Do you think your brother will have reached here?" Branwen asked.   
  
Jade smirked. "We beat him to Nashkel by several days. I doubt anything has changed."   
  
"Not on your afterlife, mommy," Xzar smiled, "Harpers and paladins take forever to travel overland, you know. Have to rescue every little girl's cat from out of a tree or under a waterfall. If we Zhents didn't waste equal reserves of time going out of our way to burn and pillage and steal, I doubt they'd ever foil us. I swear upon the Sock Puppet King. But you try getting Manshoon's ear on these matters. The one thing truly evil about the Zhentarim is all the red tape."   
  
Montaron grunted in agreement, and Edwina raised a carefully plucked eyebrow. "Just what is wrong with red tape? I have half a mind to design an outfit from nothing but, the better to show off my new curves." She peeled apart the throat of her robes to the base of her amulet nestled in the breasts she now possessed for a second day, and Montaron winced, grateful he wasn't tall enough to see anything. The conjuress looked sidelong to Jade, "I should have gotten more tattoos done back home. I don't suppose they do them in this little backwater?"   
  
Jade rolled her eyes. "I doubt it, 'wina. Forgive me if I'm less than sympathetic."   
  
Branwen snickered, and turned her attention to the approaching town, under her breath praying for this day to bring vengeance at last. The party grew increasingly alert as they entered its environs, wary for any more assassins like the godsawful bard who had greeted them in Nashkel. They marched without incident into the grimy cobblestone streets, and a pleasant lute tune wafted into their ears as they came upon Feldepost's, the largest and most upscale of the town's inns. "Money down the latrine, this place," Kagain grunted as they came up the steps.   
  
"A poor excuse for luxury," Edwina sighed, "I do miss the comforts of Thay. Fine spices and foods, rabble-free streets, plush bedchambers, servants at one's every beck and call..."   
  
Montaron snickered. "I not be wonderin' which type ye took into those plush bedchambers."   
  
"That," Edwina stamped her foot down at the top of the stairs, "A Red Wizard...-ess...does _not _discuss with grimy pint-sized thugs."   
  
"Ye say that like ye be insultin' me," Montaron grinned, greasing back his mohawk and spitting. "One might think ye be a man trapped in a woman's body, but I shouldn't wonder if it elseways around."   
  
"Enough," Jade glowered, and turned back to the party before opening the front doors. "Within is Branwen's vengeance, and the next link in the chain of our quest. We find our man, we get our information, and we deal with him."   
  
Branwen nodded solemnly and the party's bloodthirstier members murmured in approval and glee.   
  
Within, the tavern was calm enough, at lunch were a number of the town's better-off (they could scarcely be called nobles, as Edwina was quick to point out), and no belligerent drunkards were to be had at this midday hour. Jade was prepared to bribe the pot-bellied propritier as to the whereabouts of a guest named Tranzig, but Edwin pushed ahead of her, sitting at the bar and sprawling her cleavage out over its surface as she made the inquiry. This proved sufficient to fish an answer, and they made for the stairs to the upper floor. Edwina caught herself approving of the luxuriant inches-think carpeting and ostentatious tapestries upon the well-laid wood of the walls, but Jade's hand signaled kept the party hushed as they used the carpet's dampening to walk quietly up around the door.   
  
Kivan nodded, able to made out the scribblings of a quill. "At last..." Branwen whispered, summoned a spiritual hammer, and bashed in the door with one swipe.   
  
Within at a desk was the pale, thin, and rat-faced sort of mage, even Edwina sneered in disdain. Tranzig started at the break-in, blotching his ink, and jerked up from his desk to look at the scarlet-haired woman in the doorway; an aze-toting dwarf standing just in front of her body; others behind them.   
  
"Dull Gray-Black?" Xzar giggled, peeking over Kivan's shoulder to look down the same drawn arrow as the elf and inspect the man's robes. "What kind of a Favorite Color is that?"   
  
Branwen moved into full view, and Tranzig squeaked, lips quivering for a moment before he commenced the gestures and chanting for some spell.   
  
Jade and Kagain held back, letting Branwen move in. "Tempus's vengeance take thee!" she cried, her hammer flew up and caught Tranzig's chin hard on the upswing, shattering his jaw and ending his chanting or any further chance. He started to collapse even then, but Branwen caught up on the downswing. Blood spurted out his ears and eyes as the glowing hammer caved his skull in, and he fell almost bonelessly limp to the floor, blood pooling in a neat circle from his head.   
  
"I thought we be wantin' information," Montaron squeaked.   
  
Jade winced. _Oops. _"Search him." The halfling didn't need to be told.   
  
Branwen dismissed her hammer, folded her hands, closed her eyes, and whispered to herself. Jade clapped a hand over her shoulder, and smiled. "It is done."   
  
Branwen opened her eyes, and looked over the others. "Thank you." Her gaze returned to Jade, and she clapped her hand over Jade's forearm. "Until all of this is done, my arm is yours."   
  
Jade nodded. "And it will come to an end."   
  
Little concerned for solemnity, Montaron was already busy looting the body, while Xzar collected up the eyeballs that had already popped neatly from the head, and juggled them a moment before depositing them into one of the many spell component pouches lining his acid-green robes. Montaron attempted to furtively pocket a magical ring, but Jade glared at him and snapped her fingers impatiently. With a groan the halfling flicked it like a coin into the air. "Protection," he mumbled, and Jade palmed it out of the air, and handed it to Branwen. The cleric slipped it on her left ring finger, opposite Mulahey's ring, and took a deep breath, her faroff features softening as Jade had not seen them since her first softening from stone.   
  
"The next link in the chain, indeed," Montaron grinned, unfurling a letter and holding it up like some court page for his taller companions to read.   
  
_Tranzig,   
  
I am perplexed as to why Mulahey has not communicated with us in some wile. You are to go to the mines and ifnd out the condition of his operation. You are also to collect any iron that may have been stolen by the kobolds. Your next raid will most likely take place at Peldvale, or Larswood, so visit either of those areas and track us back to our camp.   
  
TAZOK _  
  
Kivan grumbled from within his mouth, and looked severely at Branwen. "Your revenge is had, my friend. Now we look to mine."   
  
--   
  
Back in the wilderness, Viconia hissed, and the humans, who could just barely make out the shape of the High Hedge, looked inquisitively at her.   
  
"The doors are torn asunder," she informed.   
  
"Heavy doors they were," Onyx mused grimly, drawing his longbow; Khalid and Minsc did likewise.   
  
"Warded and magically strong," Garrick added, lifting the crossbow from his belt.   
  
They advanced with caution. Onyx could sense no evil beings, but a carrion stench became palpable, and then almost overpowering. Slain gnolls lay near the Hedge, less than fresh bodies slashed apart in clean lines, but not looted.   
  
"K-k-k-k-killed by m-men and not m-m-m-monsters," Khalid chattered, glancing again to the foreboding hole of the Hedge's open doorway. As they passed and ascended the stone steps, the odor of rottish flesh burnt the tongue and constricted the throat. Onyx balked when he saw the true cause - Thalantyr's flesh golems had been destroyed in the anteroom, and the magics that had kept their bodies animated were now gone, leaving the meat to rot, and they seemed to be making up for lost time. They were rancid will beyond the bodies of the gnolls which lay in the hot sun.   
  
The others pretended not to notice as Viconia fell back, her rich ebony skin gone pale, waiting until the others entered to vomit off the side of the steps. She conjured water for herself with a clerical orison, cleaning herself more neatly than a cat might until she regained her imperious standard of appearance.   
  
The others were growing as disgusted and amazed as they were wary. The great dais in Thanaltyr's central chamber was now dead of glowing, lively magics. The runes did not shimmer, electricity did not coil about, and the great crystal had gone dark and appeared cracked. Onyx cursed the name of every demon or evil god that he knew when he circled about the dais and found the inevitable - the body of Thanaltyr. Imoen gave a cry when she recognized - barely - poor hapless Melicamp. The bodies, like the gnolls', had been cut as by sword, yet these also looked to have been fed upon, much of the flesh devoured. "The bitemarks look human..." Onyx half-gagged.   
  
"Elven," Viconia corrected their thoughts as she came up. "These are the bites of an elf."   
  
Jaheira looked darkly at the drow. "Methinks you've seen, indeed caused enough such bitemarks in your time, that I will not argue with you."   
  
"That will be a first," Viconia retorted.   
  
"Bitemarks?" Safana shrugged. "Who hasn't?"   
  
Dynaheir sighed, shook her head, and walked among the desecration. "And a tragedy if this Thanaltyr was a mage of great knowledge and power as you say. It would seem they are few in this rustic westerland, and I had very much hoped to meet him."   
  
Viconia sneered at her and glanced to Onyx in the instinctual hope he too would be sneering at the witch for this slight to his homeland; she took herself back after a moment, remembering her own opinions of this roofless world were quite the same. "You have," she grinned at the Wychalarn, and gestured to the wizard's body. "I present Thanaltyr."   
  
"Basest savagery," Dynaheir turned up her nose at the macabre drow, "It is not only evil, but should sicken any who are good at heart." She glaned at Onyx, and while he nodded and murmured a prayer, she cast her magic divination again, and found the dais was indeed dead of magic, though as with the gnolls it seemed the place had not been robbed; she detected dozens of magical auras of other objects about the place, if the place itself was dead. Safana looked pointedly at her, and without any amusement on her face she gestured. Imoen followed giddily as the senior thief followed the Wychalarn's finger to the same segment of the wall where the wizard had vended his wares the other day. Imoen pointed it out herself but Safana was already digging a dagger into one of the stones.   
  
"I'd'a thought it'd take some magic to get into a wizard's stuff?" she asked, peering around the pirate lady's shoulder as she worked.   
  
Safana giggled huskily, happy to humor the teenager. "Watch and learn, little girl. The wizard would have thought it would, but his cantrips won't do so much good if we just pry around them. Now, be a dear and step back in case I do set off a poisoned dart or two."   
  
Imoen squeaked and fled a half-dozen paces until her curiosity got the best of her again, and she turned to continue watching. Safana banged her other fist on the pommel to hammer in the dagger each time, breaking into the mortar on all four sides of each of four bricks in a large rectangle on the wall. "Lover?" she called over her shoulder. "Be a darling and put the dark elf's little mallet to some use, would you?"   
  
Blushing while she snickered disdainfully at him, Onyx borrowed Viconia's winnings from Bassilus, and joined Safana. She stepped aside and he pounded each of the four stones in turn with the magically hard hits of the hammer. Each shattered like no more then chalk after a single blow, and upon the fourth a snapping sound eachoed from in the wall, and Onyx jumped aside just before the rectangle of the wall within fell out, cracking with a terrible echo as it hit the floor of the chamber.   
  
Safana gestured with provocative theatrics, gliding her hands across herself and to the opened recess. "Door number one. That's a jackpot, thanks for playing the wheel of fortune." She swept an arm along the surface of the dais as it putting it into a spin.   
  
Garrick ran up, face bright with excitement. "I noted everything Thal said about his wares..." his eyes glistened as she reached into the hidden storage compartment, "I suppose I should really save the most amazing stuff for la-"   
  
"Let's have the loot, bard," Safana grimaced.   
  
"Er, without further ado..." he blushed, and pulled forth a folded bundle of fabric, and held it up to let fall out into a stunningly intricate red, gold, and green wizard's robe. "...A Robe of the Good Archmagi!" he flipped it folded again with one swift prestidigation, and held it out to Dyanheir as if there were a silver platter beneath.   
  
Minsc scratches his bald head. "Minsc's witch is very much shaped like a lady, and those appear to be for a man. Boo likes the bright colors, but they are much too large for him, and too small for Minsc."   
  
"You big silly!" Imoen stuck out her tongue and swatted the ranger on the bicep that hung even with her face, "Didn't I tellya bout the Favorite Color Rule?"   
  
"Only twenty times," Viconia informed. "Since this morning."   
  
Imoen rolled her eyes with a huff. "It goes for size, too. It'd fit a busty hobbitess mage as well as a gaunt old fusty wizard." She stoppd for a second, and turned to Onyx. "Hey Ony, kinda like the first codger we met on the road."   
  
Dynahier, gratefully accepting the gift from Garrick with a reverent face, started at once and glanced at the auburn-haired girl. "Pray tell, what didst he look like?"   
  
"Oh, y'know, baggy red robes, beard older than I am, big pointy hat..."   
  
Dynaheir stood up straight, and inhaled slowly. "And how did thy parlay go?"   
  
"Well, Jadey kinda told him to shove his long wooden stick up his dry dusty a- ..."   
  
"Imoen!" the Wychalarn gasped. "I believe thou were speaking to Elminster of Shadowdale?"   
  
"Oh..." the girl went a little pale, and held her hand over her mouth. She looked frightened for a moment, but then giggled. "Hey wait, isn't that the one who did the wertle-woo-woo with Mystra?"   
  
"Imoen!" Jaheira joined Dyanheir.   
  
"Jumpin' junebugs, you'd think he'd'a been a little less high-strung with a notch like that on his staff.."   
  
"Imoen!" Viconia unisoned.   
  
"Okay!" she rolled her eyes, and quieted down.   
  
In Thalantyr's stash they found too a Neutral Archmagi Robe, many magical arrows and potions, scrolls for Dynaheir and Garrick to use or scribe, and much other loot. Onyx and Minsc, less than enthusiastic about the pilfering even if it had no other rightful owner, meanwhile undertook the odious task of carrying outside the mutilated bodies of Thanaltyr and Melicamp (and the head of Charleston Nib, wom they did not recognize), and burying the bodies under a copse of trees that grew flush against the side of the Hedge, where they seemed least likely to be disturbed. With bowed heads they asked Mielikki for a graceful return to the earth and Lathander for swift ascent to the heavens, and feeling more at peace, if still unsettled over the mystery of the murderer, turned away. The rest of the party spent no more time in that ominous place, and with heavier backpacks and spirits, they continued northeast, to Beregost.   
  
--   
  
Montaron and Kagain unabashedly picked their teeth with the ends of their pipes as the strolled out of Feldepost's, patting satisfied stomachs after a celebratory lunch. It had been pricey enough, but Montaron had seen to it that their meal be subsidized by the purses of the other patrons. Licking his lips with the satisfaction of a profitable, quest-furthering murder, a nice filling meal, and a productive pickpocketing spree, Montaron took a long drag from his pipe and blew out a ring of smoke.   
  
"Ho there wanderer!"   
  
Jade groaned and went pale as she came down the steps after her short companions. "Not again…"   
  
"Yes, again," Xzar groaned, nodding toward the pointy had and robe with the walking stick ambling up the street their way. "I'd recognize Pinkish Red anywhere."   
  
"A disgrace to Red everywhere," Edwina harrumpted, daintily fishing a bit of chicken from her teeth with a fingernail.   
  
Jade braced herself at the front of the party as the bearded man approached, but then her jaw dropped as she saw a familiar face rounding Feldepost's and another behind. "Onyx! Imoen!"   
  
Her brother and friend appeared to have noticed the same old man they'd met outside Candlekeep, and looked at her with bright smiles and waves of greeting as they approached alongside a the party. Jade counted a new ninth among their number, a leather-clad woman on her brother's other side, and raised a skeptical eyebrow. Her Zhentish and Thayvian allies were groaning at the reappearance of the Harpers and Rashemani, but Jade ignored it as she had her brother closed the distance and hugged.   
  
The old man coughed pointedly, and she turned to him with unmasked irritation. "What now?"   
  
"Sis…" Onyx winced, looking to the old man.   
  
"Well now…" he chuckled, lifting his wide-brimmed hat slightly to give a spray gleam of his eyes, "Our paths cross once more."   
  
Jade snickered. "Yes, funny that. Quite the small world, 'E'."   
  
Her brother winced again, smiling politely at the old man, who merely continued, planting his staff firmly against the cobblestones. "I suppose proper introductions are in order, as we will no doubt meet again. My name is Elminster."   
  
Jaheira and Khalid exchanged glances; it wasn't lost on Onyx as he looked sidelong at them.   
  
The wizard looked between him and Jade as he went on. "I've heard nothing but tales of thy exploints in the time we have been apart. It would seem that thou art destined to have quite the impact on the Sword Coast. Quite the burden for one so young."   
  
Edwina snickered, "When you're 2,000 years old, young is a bit of a tautology." Elminster whistled dismissively through his teeth at the Red Wizard.   
  
"I was not aware that my actions were common knowledge," Jade put her hands on her hands.   
  
"Perhaps not common knowledge," Elminster tipped his hat, "But everything is plain for those who know where to look."   
  
"Cut the crypto-babble and get to the point," Jade demanded. Onyx sighed.   
  
"At it is," the sage wizard went on, "I am aware of thine efforts and accomplishments. Thou art each quite adept, as Gorion predicted. All that remains is to determine motive."   
  
"Maybe mine aren't yours to determine," Jade sneered, but Onyx took a half-step before her, and smiled and Elminster. "Gorion? Pray tell you knew him? But you said nothing before." His voice was polite but skeptical too.   
  
"'Twas neither the place nor the time for such things," Elminster shrugged. "As painful as the circumstances may have been, 'twas time for thee to forge thine on paths. One of the most valuable lessons that life has taught me, is…"   
  
"…sleeping with goddesses is career-boosting and fun besides?" Edwina asked innocently.   
  
"…when _not _to go sticking my pipe in other people's affairs. Such is the case now, as well."   
  
Imoen winced and shifted her weight, and looked up at Safana, whispering, "I don't like the thought of him sticking his 'pipe' in our affairs!" The elder thief snickered in agreement, and stepped up to drape her arm Onyx and tilt her head skeptically at Elminster.   
  
The paladin felt more assertive and leveled his gaze under the wizard's wide hat. "Tales I know speak well of you as a force of good. You could tell me so much, about Gorion and myself alike. Surely your wisdom could only set us on a better path."   
  
Jade rolled her eyes, and Elminster's face remained unreadable under his bushy beard. "I fear I cannot. Self discovery is best left to the self, and all thy questions will be answered in time.   
  
"That's a rhetorical statement," Jade folded her arms over her chest and looked pointedly at Elminster.   
  
He lifted his hat a bit to reveal and raise a bushy eyebrow, then leaned forward to bow faux-politely over his staff. "Then it would seem I have no more words of use for you, and with this, I shall take my leave." Indeed, he then vanished in the proverbial puff of smoke.   
  
Onyx leaned on Safana and rubbed his face, looking to Jaheira. "A guide or a game? May I attribute this to Harper balance?"   
  
Jaheira folded her arms and looked no more amused than Jade had. "What was said was what he believed you needed to hear. We have our leads from the Surgeon as you seemed so sure this morning, guidance will be given when needed. You are a warrior of faith, so have faith."   
  
Jade strode defensively before her brother and glared at her. "We grew up just fine without a mother, thank you, and we won't be needing one now."   
  
Dynaheir moved up alongside Jaheira, and then Branwen opposite her alongside Jade. Kivan appraised the drow for the first time with a glare as dark as her hue, and Kagain grunted, hefting his axe pointedly as he appraised the elf. Khalid straightened his posture alongside his wife and Xzar tiptoed forth to leer ghoulishly at the skittish half-elf. Dynaheir stepped forth to fold her arms and look down her nose at the unbalanced wizard, her face fell in surprise when Edwina courtsied sarcastically; Minsc scratched his head but looked vaguely unsettled. Montaron nearly bent backwards to snarl up at the hulking berserker.   
  
"Hooboy…" Imoen groaned, and shared a grimace with Garrick. "Nothin' like one bein' big happy party again."


End file.
